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Santiago Bernabeu Stadium tour, Madrid: The cult of football
From the top-most tier, I see a panorama dotted with 81,044 seats gradually smudge with the green velvety field. The four tiers below me that successively converge into the pitch is empty. Maintenance workers are busy tending the grass; these are painstakingly obtained from northern Europe. I am at one of Madrid’s top tourist attraction—the Santiago Bernabeu Stadium tour—football club Real Madrid’s home turf. Many would casually call this the Real Madrid stadium tour. Even people who are obscurely aware of the football (what Americans call soccer) world know Real Madrid by name. The club holds the highest number of championships for both La Liga (the Spanish football championship), and UEFA…