Porto.
May.
Champions League final.
Those three words were everything.
One of the biggest sporting events on the entire planet, watched live by hundreds of millions, known and felt and argued over by a great many more than that. And right now the whole of Portugal was feeling it.
As a major footballing nation, one that lived and breathed the game, being handed the biggest club event of the entire season was not something they were going to do quietly. And they did not disappoint. Fireworks were the least of it. There were murals of the players going up on the sides of buildings, huge banners strung across whole streets, viewing centres being set up in squares with screens the size of houses, flags hanging from balconies, scarves in shop windows, the two crests painted onto pavements and pub doors and the backs of jackets. The entire country had been decorated for it.
And with two of the biggest teams in Europe walking out to contest it, Chelsea against FC Barcelona, it was bigger still.
Because even here, in Portugal, where the home league and the home support were thriving, where the country had its own giants and its own history, both Barcelona and Chelsea had a serious fanbase. And it went beyond the people who called themselves 'real' supporters of the two clubs. Even among those who lived and died for the local sides, for Benfica and Porto and Sporting and the rest of the teams across the Portuguese leagues, almost every single one of them had someone in this final. Someone they wanted to win.
Two clubs that carry some of the most recognisable names in the entire history of the game. Two clubs whose shirts had been worn, at one time or another, by half the players a Portuguese kid grew up idolising. Deco, a genuine legend at FC Porto, who had then gone on to Barcelona, and who was sitting in the Barcelona directors' box tonight as their sporting director. And that was just one thread. Just one reason.
There were a hundred others pulling people toward one side or the other. Nobody was truly neutral. Football is a game that produces far too much emotion for anyone to ever honestly claim neutrality. As long as you love the game, you always, somewhere in you, like one better. Maybe because you associate with one of them more. Maybe because you grew up watching Ronaldinho light up the Camp Nou. Maybe because of the strange, specific love so many Portuguese carried for the Special One, for Mourinho.
And then there was hatred.
Because in football, the only thing more enjoyable than watching your team win is watching a team you hate lose. It is one of the game's great and terrible truths. And so, all across Portugal, plenty of Madridista Portuguese were sitting there tonight quietly, and some of them not so quietly, praying for Barcelona to lose. And it was not only Chelsea who benefited from that. Plenty of Arsenal and Manchester United Portuguese found themselves cheering for Barcelona to win, purely for the pleasure of watching Chelsea lose. Hatred. A beautiful, ugly, essential part of the game.
But by far the biggest reason so many Portuguese fans were pulled toward one team over the other was very simple.
Because in Portugal, right now, in 2021, there was exactly one name that dominated the entire footballing landscape of the country. One.
And there was no way on earth that the many, many, many fans of that man were going to sit around and cheer neutrally, or worse, while the player half the world had decided was his greatest rival went and tried to win yet another trophy. In the one competition that, as far as they were concerned, belonged without question to their guy.
Everybody wanted one of these two teams to win.
And it showed. It showed everywhere. And nowhere did it show more than in Porto itself, the city where the Estádio do Dragão stood, the ground where this Champions League final was about to be played.
Around the stadium, the whole place had turned into a festival.
The streets had filled up hours before they needed to. Fans of both clubs moving through the city in their colours, and the shirts told a story if you knew how to read them. The Chelsea fans came in every era, every number, a scattered history of the club on their backs, an eight here, a twenty-six there, an eleven, a ten, a twenty-five, a dozen different heroes from a dozen different seasons. But the Barcelona fans, the Barcelona fans were almost all wearing the same thing. Different shirts, different years, home and away and third, and yet on the back of nearly every single one of them was the same number.
Ten.
And it was not only the fans.
The city itself, being the city chosen to host the Champions League final, knew exactly what was coming. The local administration, the business owners, the shopkeepers, all of them understood the sheer amount of money that was about to pour through their streets on the back of hosting a night like this. So they went all out.
The cafés had put their tables out onto the pavements, umbrellas up, and half of them had swapped their usual umbrellas for ones printed with the two club crests. Shop windows had been redressed overnight, Messi's face in one, and in a few of them, if you looked, a much younger face, Mateo's, staring back out at the street. Buses ran through the centre with the Chelsea badge down the side of them. And out on one of the expressways into the city, a single enormous billboard had gone up, the Barcelona side down one half, Piqué and Messi and Mateo, the ball at Mateo's feet, and the Chelsea side down the other, Rüdiger and Mason Mount and Kanté, and across the whole of it, in letters you could read from half a kilometre away, three words.
CHAMPIONS LEAGUE FINAL.
The whole city was alive for this game.
"Dude, this is going to be insane. The odds for Barcelona are not even making sense any more. If you actually want to make money off this, the only move is to risk it all and go on Chelsea. That is the only version of this that makes sense."
"Yeah, I know, but man." A sigh. "I keep thinking about going big on Barcelona. Like, if I put my school fees on Barcelona and it doubles, that would not be a bad day, you know?"
"Dude." A laugh. "You are actually sick. You are seriously about to use your school fees again? HAHA."
Inside the bus with the Chelsea badge down its side, a group of college kids were riding home from campus, one of them standing and holding the rail, the rest of them slumped into the seats, every single one of them on their phone. And they were not arguing about who they were supporting.
They were arguing about who they were betting on.
That was a different thing entirely. That one concerned their money.
"Man, I'm so lost." One of them was frowning down at his betting app, thumbing through it. He looked up at the others. "Okay, who are you guys betting on?"
One of the boys glanced up from his own phone.
"Man, I'm thinking of dropping a hundred on both teams. Two parlays."
The first guy looked at him, confused.
"But how would that even." He trailed off, working it out and failing. "How does that work?"
The one who wanted to bet on both teams grinned, sitting up now, warming to it.
"See, check this. If I back both of them, right, then I basically remove any chance of losing. Look. If Barcelona wins, sure, no profit, fine, but I get almost my whole capital back. And if Chelsea wins." He spread his hands, and his voice climbed, and he could not hold back the smile. "That is just money. Money. Money."
He laughed at himself.
"No-risk betting. It's genius." He tapped the side of his own head, twice. "I can't believe I just thought of that myself." He sat back, delighted, laughing. "There is no way I can lose."
The first guy looked at him for a second.
"Wait." He tilted his head. "What happens if they draw?"
The laughter stopped.
The guy who had it all figured out sat there, mouth slightly open, and you could actually watch the thought arrive. He looked at his friend. He looked back down at his phone. He looked at his friend again.
"I." His voice cracked. "That. No way, right?" He was genuinely startled now, staring at the screen like it had betrayed him. "That can't."
The friend who had asked just shook his head, looked away, and muttered, half to himself:
"Why do I even bother with you."
He turned to the second friend beside him.
"Hey. What about you? What are you thinking?"
The second friend was not listening. He was staring at nothing, deep in his own head.
"Ehn?" He came up out of it, blinking. He had not heard a word. Then he turned, not to the friend who had asked, but to the one standing at the rail, the one who had started the whole conversation.
"Dude." His voice was low, serious. "Do you actually think I should bet it?"
The standing friend looked at him.
"Your tuition fees?"
"Yeah, man." The second guy nodded. "I need this money. I'm thinking of risking it. I already used part of it to buy tickets to the game."
The standing friend just shook his head slowly.
"Man, I don't know. I mean." He whistled through his teeth, out of his depth. He clearly had no idea what advice to give.
The second guy shook his head anyway.
"Nah, man. I need this."
The standing one shrugged.
"Do you, man."
He turned to the last of them, and opened his mouth to ask.
And then the guy who wanted to bet on both teams cut across everyone.
"Dude. Drake just dropped one point two million euros on Chelsea."
That got every single head in the bus.
The second guy, the one who wanted to bet his tuition, whipped round.
"Wait, serious?" He reached over and snatched his friend's phone straight out of his hand, ignoring the offended noise the boy made, and scrolled the news himself, and it was there, posted by a source you could actually trust. "Holy... it's real."
The standing one whistled.
"Man." He shook his head. "Didn't he make like, what, on the Barcelona Atlético game?"
The third guy, who had not said a word this whole time, spoke up.
"Over two million, bro."
A beat, and then all of them, together:
"Damn."
The guy took his phone back off his friend and pocketed it.
"That's it. This ends it. If I ever hear the 'football money is bigger than music money' debate again after this, lol." He scoffed.
His friends groaned as one.
"Dude." One of them threw a hand up. "Because of one million? That's Messi and Ronaldo's one-week salary."
The one who had started it just folded his arms.
"I've told you before I even got into this with you lot. Show me one footballer who is a billionaire, and then we can talk."
The standing one rolled his eyes.
"Whatever."
He turned, finally, to the last friend, the one he had been trying to reach this whole time.
"What about you, Amos?"
The friend the others called Amos turned and faced him.
"Who are you betting on?" the standing one said again.
Amos let out a small breath.
"I already have half a mind not to bet at all."
Then he looked at his friend, and he said it, completely calm:
"But I already played mine."
That stopped everyone.
"Wait, for real."
"Who did you bet on?"
"Serious?"
Amos just smiled. He brought out his phone, unlocked it, and turned it around, and held up the bet slip.
They all looked at it.
They stared at it.
And then, slowly, one by one, they started muttering.
"Dude. A thousand euros. Are you for real."
"You bet on Barcelona."
"Mad."
Three of them looked at the slip, and then looked away.
Amos took his phone back, laughing, and tucked it away.
"Yeah, I just placed it. My heart is honestly beating. I can't wait for the game to start."
The three others looked at each other. And then, slowly, they nodded at one another, some silent agreement passing between them.
"Yep," they said, together.
And they all reached for their phones.
Amos watched them.
"You guys are betting now too?"
The three of them nodded, thumbing at their screens.
"Yeah."
Amos looked at them.
"So who are you all betting on?"
And all three of them answered at the exact same time, in the exact same voice, fast, flat, and without a single shadow of a doubt anywhere in it:
"Chelsea."
Amos blinked.
"Oh."
The friends were already grinning at him.
"Dude, with you on Barcelona, the path is clear."
"Since I've known you, Amos, I don't think I've ever once seen a single team you supported actually win. HAHAHA."
Another one was laughing too hard to sit up straight.
"I mean, Drake is bad, but dude, you are just straight up cursed."
The standing one joined in.
"Between you betting on Barcelona and utdtrey going to watch games in person, I genuinely don't know which of you is worse for a team."
The three of them were laughing at him now, all of them, and they hit their phones one last time.
"Done."
The one who had bet his school fees squeezed his eyes shut.
"Oh, Lord, please. Please let this one hit. Please. Please."
Amos just looked at the four of them.
Then he shook his head slowly.
"Wow."
And scenes like this were not only playing out here.
They were happening all over the world. In Egypt, in Nigeria, in Brazil, in Argentina, in Mexico, in Japan, in South Korea, in India, in the Saudi Arabia, in Morocco, in Senegal, in Indonesia. Not always about betting. But in every one of those countries, in living rooms and bars and barbershops and street corners and group chats, hundreds of millions of people had the exact same thing on their lips tonight.
THE CHAMPIONS LEAGUE FINAL.
A/N
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