Why does Real Madrid never play at the Santiago Bernabéu?

MadridBarça will open Camp Nou on Thursday, April 2nd (6:45 pm) for the Women's Champions League quarter-final. Chelsea will play at Stamford Bridge; Bayern Munich at the Allianz Arena; Arsenal at the Emirates Stadium; Manchester United at Old Trafford; Olympique Lyonnais at the Groupama Stadium; Wolfsburg at the Volkswagen Arena... and Real Madrid at the Alfredo Di Stéfano Stadium. This means that Real Madrid is the only team that will not open its main stadium for the Champions League quarter-finals. This is no surprise, as the team managed by Pau Quesada has never played at the Bernabéu since its creation in 2019, when it absorbed the modest Tacón. A year ago, midfielder Melanie Leupolz confessed on the podcast... Kicker FE:maleShe had spoken with Florentino Pérez. The German footballer explained that the Real Madrid president told the players he would open the Santiago Bernabéu stadium to the women's first team "when they win their first title."

The average attendance at the Alfredo Di Stéfano Stadium – which will host the first leg of the Champions League quarter-final against Barcelona this Wednesday at 6:45 p.m. – hovers around 1,000 spectators. In fact, one of the stadium's side stands is only opened for special matches, such as those against Barcelona – when there is always a large contingent of Barça fans – or Atlético de Madrid. Real Madrid argues that the women's team is still developing and needs greater visibility. "We want the people who come to the Di Stéfano to be proud and connect with the team. It's a venue that has helped us advance in Europe," said Real Madrid's coach, Pau Quesada. There's still a way to go, but those in Madrid believe the public would respond to the call. "The women's team's regular fans and the players are eager for the matches to be played at the Bernabéu; they've expressed this on more than one occasion, but it's far from becoming a reality," explains Marta Griñán, a journalist for the newspaper. AceThe sporting difference—23 victories for Barcelona to just one for Real Madrid—is also doing little to encourage the Madrid club to open the main stadium. "In Madrid, the atmosphere is no different from any other week," Griñán points out.

The Barcelona bet

The opposite is true in Barcelona, ​​which next week will open Camp Nou for the women's team for the eighth time (thirteenth if we include matches at the Lluís Companys Olympic Stadium). The Blaugrana club can boast of having the highest attendance ever for a women's football match, with 91,553 spectators, specifically against Real Madrid the first time they played at Camp Nou with fans in attendance (a Barça-Espanyol match was played without spectators in 2021 due to the pandemic). That was on March 30, 2022, and weeks later – on April 22 – this figure was surpassed against Wolfsburg, reaching 91,648 people.

In all these encounters, the record is heavily in Barça's favor, with nine wins, one draw, and two minor defeats. The first loss was against Chelsea (0-1) in the first leg of the 2023-24 Champions League semi-finals, a match that had no further consequences, as the team then coached by Jonathan Giráldez would come back to win in the return leg. The other was a year ago, on March 23, 2025, a 1-3 defeat against Real Madrid in a league match. Both, however, took place at Montjuïc.

For Wednesday's match, Pere Romeu welcomes back Mapi León and Kika Nazareth. The Aragonese center-back has returned to the squad after two months out. Her last match was on January 24 in the Spanish Super Cup final against Real Madrid. Since then, a pinched nerve in her right ankle has kept her off the pitch. In the case of the Portuguese midfielder, she finished the match against Athletic Club with some physical problems, but she will be available for the triple-header against Real Madrid.