UEFA staff have been on site for months preparing the host stadium and the city centre for a ‘Champions Festival’, which aims to keep both visiting supporters and corporate partners busy during their stay.

Liverpool or Spurs’ fans who wander away from the official Fans Zones will find plenty to amuse themselves, with many of the traditional tourist sites from the Palacio Real to El Buen Retiro park having their own football related histories.

Madrid is well used to tourist throngs, with all the infrastructure and experience of one of Europe’s most visited cities. Although this year has brought familiar complaints of gouging from hoteliers, airlines and ticket touts taking advantage of fans’ desperation to witness their team in the final.

The theory anyway would be that - whether their team wins or loses - those lucky enough to be in town this weekend will have an experience to remember.

Food

Visitors to Madrid on any weekend are spoiled for choice for eating options - with bars and restaurants on pretty much every street catering for all tastes and wallet sizes.

Those looking for tapas or quick bites could try Calle de la Cava Baja, where the famous huevos rotos [egg and chips] at Casa Lucio are a favourite of Real Madrid president Florentino Perez.

The Mercado de San Miguel food market just by Plaza Mayor is bright and clean but maybe a bit overpriced. The Mercado Anton Martin on Calle Atocha is a more authentic spot with some great value street food.

For more formal eating, the streets around the Bernabeu are packed with restaurants frequented by fans, players and hangers-on after Real Madrid games. Atletico Madrid coach Diego Simeone is known to visit the Di Maria ‘asador’ [grill], which has three locations around the city centre.

Pubs

Most of the bars in central areas around Sol and Gran Via will be well prepared - meaning TV screens within view of tables both inside and outside in the sun, but also prices hiked and menus shortened especially.

Madrid is jammed with Irish bars of varying quality, size and authenticity – not every Guinness [or Murphy's] will be perfectly poured, and it is always worth checking whether TV commentary will be in English.

The more adventurous might walk down from Sol to the newly trendy Lavapies barrio, full of no-frills bars serving just one brand of beer [Mahou], with all TVs likely to be tuned to the Spanish coverage.

Three Irish pub picks

James Joyce - Calle Alcala: Near to the Prado art museum is the James Joyce - a regular haunt for many Irish in the city, and unofficial home of Madrid Harps GAA club.

O’Brians - Calle del Principe: A pick close to the fans areas in Sol is O’Brian - which despite the surprise spelling is a pretty authentic spot with 18 big screens that show soccer, GAA and rugby games all year round.

The Irish Rover - Avenida de Brasil: Close to the Bernabeu is The Irish Rover, another well established place with lots of screens and TVs over two floors. The burgers come recommended.

Tickets

Liverpool and Tottenham were each allocated 16,613 tickets for this year’s final - with 4,000 put on general sale earlier in the season, and the UEFA ‘family’, corporate sponsors and media getting the rest of the seats at the 67,000 capacity Wanda Metropolitano.

Liverpool made 63% (10,466) available to Anfield season ticket holders and club members who had attended six UCL games earlier in the season. 30,508 individuals applied having met this criteria - meaning they had a one in 4.6 chance of being successful.

25% (4,153) of Liverpool’s allocation went to 'hospitality members' and 'priority rights holders'. Matchday officials, first-team players, former players and media got 11% (1,827), with other commercial partners taking around 1% (167).

The cheapest tickets released to the clubs cost £60, but over half were priced at £154, a fifth at £385 and 5% at £513 [all GBP].

Those fans not fortunate enough to qualify through this process were left to scavenge wherever possible - anecdotally some were paying upwards of €5,000 on internet resale platforms, without the certainty of making it through security on match-day.

Both clubs took a dim view of fans deciding to cash-in on their luck. Tottenham have banned three of their season ticket holders who had listed their final tickets for sale online.

Travel and accommodation

An expensive reality of Champions League final weekends, wherever the game is played, are the challenges posed by getting affordably to the host city and finding somewhere to stay.

Those travelling from Ireland have not been hit quite as badly as fans coming in from Liverpool or London. But some still found it cheaper to fly direct to other airports like Malaga, Valencia or Barcelona, before making their way to Madrid by train or car. An intrepid few might even have taken the overnight ferry from Cork to Santander on Spain's northern coast.

Those without the foresight and good fortune to book far ahead will be paying handsomely for a bed, any bed. A quick scan of hotels.com early in the week saw the cheapest rooms at around €1,000 for Friday and Saturday night. Similar inflation has occurred on Airbnb, where some hosts reacted to two English teams making the final by cancelling bookings and then demanding triple the price originally agreed.

A few enterprising locals have gone to the bother of registering on Airbnb just to rent their flat or room for the weekend at what seem [relatively] reasonable prices. But for all these options it is buyer beware, for sure.

Groups booking at the last minute might consider staying in one of the historic tourist towns which ring Madrid at about one hour's distance - Toledo, Segovia, Avila or Aranjuez - and then renting a car to get back after the game.

Official UEFA events

UEFA having commandeered many of Madrid’s most visited tourist spots for their ‘Champions Festival’. This runs from Thursday to Sunday offering free entertainment to fans, and access for their corporate sponsors to new potential customers.

The officially-mandated fun starts with an opening ceremony 11am Thursday at the Puerta del Sol square, which will house the UEFA Royal House of Football, UEFA Shirt Gallery and #EqualGame Zone.

The nearby 16th century Plaza Mayor has been fitted out with a five-a-side pitch, to be used during the weekend by UEFA legends, Cerebral Palsy Football, Powerchair Football and the Homeless World Cup.

There’s a ‘Giant Trophy Selfie Point’ at Plaza de Oriente, just by the sometime residence of Spain's King Felipe VI [an Atletico Madrid fan]. Back at Sol each night are open air concerts, with acts including singer/songwriter Sebastian Yatra, Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike and Carlos Vives.

On Saturday, the official Fan Zones will have activities, food, drink and music all day up to 6PM - but they then close and do NOT have big screens showing the game. Liverpool supporters are invited to gather

at Plaza Salvador Dali, with Tottenham’s meeting about a 20 minute walk away at Plaza Colon. Both squares are directly linked by public transport with the Wanda Metropolitano, nudging supporters of each club to travel by different metro lines and emerge from different stations near the ground.

The centre-piece of the 2019 final’s opening ceremony is a performance by American pop rock band Imagine Dragons, with the Estadio Wanda Metropolitano’s high-tech light and sound systems sure to be turned up to the max.

Tips and advice

Many Madrid locals would probably have preferred for it not to be two English teams meeting in the final. Sports daily Marca tapped into a certain mood in the city on Monday with a cover headline ‘Fear’, and articles warning of 200,000 potential ‘hooligans’ arriving without tickets for the game.

This feeling was not helped by a few Liverpool fans pushing a local into a fountain when visiting Barcelona for the semi-final first leg last month. There have also been regular incidents between police and supporters when Premier League clubs visit Madrid - with Spanish police often taking a more heavy-handed approach to good-natured drunkenness than Irish or English counterparts.

Visitors should remember that drinking on the street, and on public transport, is illegal in Spain. And that police have the right to demand a look at your passport, even if you are quietly going about your own business.

UEFA are advising all with tickets to be at the Wanda Metropolitano at least a couple of hours before the 9pm local time kick-off, with long queues certain at various security checkpoints around the stadium. Experience suggests full-body searches are likely. After the game fans should head back into the city centre to continue celebrating or drowning their sorrows, as the area around the only-recently finished stadium is not the most welcoming after dark.

Finally, it is worth saying that trouble is very rare at night in Madrid - with the city usually partying happily together until the sun comes up, without any aggro or problems.