Forget about football. For the teams taking part this week, the Champions League experience begins not with the famous national anthem or the referee’s whistle, but with clinking glasses and glistening cutlery in some of Europe’s finest restaurants.
Welcome to the world of Champions League pre-match food. It’s part of the match-day rituals of continental Europe’s elite football competitions, one with little-known but often strange meanings.
These can help clubs forge political alliances, lay the groundwork for deals, and impress glamorous guests, but they can also go very wrong in some cases. The Athletic spoke to multiple sources who have experienced them firsthand, many of whom requested anonymity to protect their relationship, and how they really work. I looked into it.
Zalacain is an upscale restaurant located in El Viso, one of Madrid’s chicest neighborhoods.
The Santiago Bernabéu stadium is just two kilometers away, which explains why Real Madrid president Florentino Perez likes to welcome the visiting team’s guests here before Champions League matches.
Real Madrid and Milan managers meet in Saracain in 2009 (Victor Carretero/Real Madrid via Getty Images)
Pre-match meals attended by owners, managers and board members tend to be held in private settings at other clubs, but Madrid do things a little differently. The Zarakhain summit was promoted on Real’s social networks during Manchester City’s visit to Manchester City in April 2024. While reporters are often waiting outside, Mr. Perez rarely stops to speak, although reporters from other countries can sometimes be more candid.
For example, when Chelsea were here in April 2023, Todd Boley, just 11 months into his role as co-owner of Chelsea, gave an interview to El Chiringuito TV and talked about his cooking experience before offering any predictions. explained. “Very good food, good food,” he said. “Chelsea will win 3-0.”
When Skye asked the same question, he retorted further. “I have a lot of faith so we will win 3-0 tonight.”
Boley accompanied fellow co-owner Hansjörg Wyss and club director Daniel Finkelstein to Zarakhain. Wyss was asked by El Chiringuito if Chelsea would win 4-0, to which he replied: “Of course.”
Chelsea then lost 2-0 and were eliminated from the competition. With the domestic campaign faltering, these words, especially from Boley, only increased pressure on an ownership that was widely felt to be struggling in a new sport.
These mealtime conversations are often mundane, but the context makes them interesting and reflective of broader relationships.
Jorge Valdano, Real’s former secretary general, said during a lunch with Bayern Munich that his German colleague suggested that Real’s financial situation was poor. Di Stefano told the story of when he left the protest.
Recently, Real and Paris Saint-Germain faced off in the last 16 of the Champions League in 2022, but their relationship was almost severed due to their different positions in the European Super League (Madrid was in favor of participating, PSG was very reluctant to participate). ). The future of Kylian Mbappé, a striker who Spanish clubs were keen to sign.
The first leg was scheduled for Monday at Guy Savoy, a fine-dining restaurant near the Pont Neuf in Paris. The fine-dining restaurant was rated the best in the world by La Liste magazine between 2017 and 2024, but the 2021 edition has been cancelled. Due to the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) pandemic.
However, PSG changed their plans on Tuesday and decided to dine at the Michelin-starred Pavillon. Real was plagued by schedule changes. Real CEO Jose Angel Sánchez and other executives showed up on time, but Perez arrived 30 minutes late. PSG were unimpressed and the food was consumed in record time.
However, these are exceptions. The presence of UEFA representatives usually creates a friendly atmosphere between even the fiercest rivals, making those on opposite sides of the table reluctant to talk about common grievances or even mutual interests. .
Last season, when PSG faced Newcastle United in the group stage, the club’s Qatari president Nasser Al-Khelaifi was keenly aware of the political context given the involvement of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund at St James’s Park. was.
Ahead of the match, Al-Khelaifi called former Newcastle striker Alan Shearer and asked him to book him a table at the best restaurant in Newcastle for lunch, which was attended by French winger David Ginola, who represented both clubs. . Shearer manages to lure them to Kaikai, an upscale Indian restaurant just off the docks. Al-Khelaifi wanted to pay his respects and decided to visit the statue of legendary manager Sir Bobby Robson.
All this happened in public. Some clubs will be more cautious depending on their opponents. Aston Villa have previously hosted managers from other clubs at restaurants in Birmingham, but have been using Villa Park as their venue since qualifying for the Champions League for the first time.
Ahead of Bayern Munich’s visit earlier this season, a pre-match meal was held on match day ahead of a management meeting, with Villa’s sporting director Monchi giving a speech to guests before exchanging gifts between the clubs. welcomed.
Pre-match meal between Aston Villa and Bayern Munich managers held at Villa Park (Aston Villa/Aston Villa FC, via Getty Images)
As far as British clubs are concerned, many are based overseas and meals are increasingly attended by employees rather than owners.
Some who attended such meetings years ago are wondering about their impact. The event was an opportunity to build a loose relationship. Are clubs and managers more distrustful of each other now because key decision-makers rarely meet and talk about anything other than football?
This was not always the case. When Liverpool were under manager David Moores, he hosted dinners inside the club’s trophy room at Anfield the night before matches. The main reason for this was that he did not want to travel twice from his home near Ormskirk to Liverpool on match day. It’s about 40 minutes away.
As the years went on, Liverpool increasingly played against English clubs in competitions. This led to complaints about the dinner held the night before. Directors from other clubs didn’t want to spend all day waiting in a city they had visited many times. Moore disagreed, insisting it was still part of the tradition. He insisted that he still had things to consider with the UEFA delegation.
Sometimes travelers try too hard to impress their hosts. One time Liverpool were playing in Norway. The Liverpool director spent much of the trip reading the in-flight magazine, which contained an article about the impact of North Sea oil on the Norwegian economy. The director decided to pass on some of his newly acquired knowledge at a subsequent dinner party. While rattling off a bunch of facts and figures, the smartly suited man sitting next to him stopped in his tracks and suggested he wasn’t entirely right. He was Norway’s Minister of Finance.
Keith Wyness, Everton’s CEO from 2004 to 2008, vividly remembers the club’s trip to Villarreal in the 2005 Champions League final qualifier. The match was controversial, with referee Pierluigi Collina disallowing Duncan Ferguson’s equalizing goal. Overtime.
Wyness told The Athletic that the pre-match lunch was short and Everton managers felt “a tantrum flared and emotions were too high to return to the boardroom (after the final whistle)”. .
“After the game I didn’t know what to do so I went to the tunnel area and ended up walking around the stadium because I was furious with the referee’s decision,” he admitted. “(Normally) I would have made some friends at lunch the day before and wished them luck in the next round, but it was pretty bad in the boardroom.
“We were just enemies. It was hostile. There was a very bad feeling afterwards about this decision and the incident, which was further amplified by how much it meant to Everton, and the sporting handshakes and the fun. There was no parting.”
Controversy over Duncan Ferguson’s canceled goal has soured relations between Everton and Villarreal (Phil Cole/Getty Images)
Wyness remembers another draw against Zenit three years later in the Europa League. At that time, the Russian side had invited “one of the top players from Gazprom.”
“He had a political situation, so there was a little bit more to discuss. As a sponsor, he had very strong opinions. It was interesting to get some opinions from him. There’s not always a lot to say between club officials.
The Scot did not ply his trade at the pre-match lunch, but had more success as he sat next to Inter’s sporting director at the UEFA draw in Monaco. They discussed Andi van der Meyde, the Dutch winger who ended up being remembered at Goodison Park for the wrong reasons.
Wyness speaks fondly of his experience at his former club Aberdeen. Aberdeen played as a Moldovan side with a president who was also the police chief. Wyness said the officer liked whiskey and was “completely devastated for two days” on a trip to Scotland. On the way back, the officers became more serious, and Wyness was given a guided tour of Chisinau in a police car.
It ended up being his fondest memory of traveling with the European team. “Moldova is famous for its wine, so when we sat in the boardroom for pre-match lunch there were six glasses of wine lined up. We were each given a drink and then we had to sing a song to the other managers. ” he recalls. “We sang Aurora of Old Aberdeen. It was so strange! Directors of clubs in Moldova are often businessmen from big companies. Most of them have football clubs, so they are very powerful people. And it’s great to get to know each other.”
At Everton, pre-game European dinners were always held in the boardroom, and the late chairman Bill Kenwright often invited celebrities.
This was the strategy adopted by Fulham, who had Hugh Grant playing regularly. When he played against Wolfsburg in the Europa League in 2010, he was introduced to then Volkswagen CEO Martin Winterkorn at the pre-match meal. Volkswagen owns 100 percent of Wolfsburg, one of two exceptions to the Bundesliga’s 50+1 rule, as do pharmaceutical companies Bayer AG and Bayer Leverkusen.
Hugh Grant (left) speaks with Volkswagen CEO Martin Winterkorn in 2010 (Nigel Treblin/DDP/AFP via Getty Images)
Ahead of the return race, Wolfsburg invited the Fulham expedition team, featuring Grant, to a test track in the middle of a forest, where the directors could drive the cars of their choice, including Lamborghini, Audi and Bugatti.
Sometimes generosity exists, but it is not always met with the same level of enthusiasm. In the early 2000s, when Olympiakos arranged a seafood meal on a beautiful boat moored in Piraeus port before a match against Manchester United, none of the visiting managers showed up. So David Meek, a longtime reporter for the local Manchester Evening News, tried to save face by giving a speech pretending to be the director.
In 2002, when United played Nantes, the French side organized a public reception in the castle for Manchester’s media and other guests, with the Mayor of Manchester also in attendance. Manchester-based reporters called on United to do something in return after being treated so well. After much pressure, United agreed.
Where is the venue? Harry Lumsden’s fish and chip shop near a dual carriageway in Salford.
United won the match 5-1, but in the broader game of culinary diplomacy, the French club were the clear winners.
Additional reporting: Greg Evans, Mario Cortegana Santos, Daniel Taylor
(Top photo: Getty Images; Ulrik Pedersen/NurPhoto. Additional credit: iStock)
