Estadio Vicente Calderón: A temple of football

It will definitely be a very special experience for the Werkself pros, who have travelled wide and far in their careers, and for the 1,000 fans in black and red at the game on Wednesday. Games at the Vicente Calderon, with its capacity of 55,000, leave nobody cold. That is a certainty with the passionate and vocal Rojiblancos fans whose constant cries of 'Atlétiiii, Atlétiiii’' rock the stadium opened in 1966 and named after a former president of the club.

New stadium in the east of the city

From this autumn the ground will become part of the past. Atlético are moving out of the stadium in the south, feared by opponents at home and abroad, to a new venue in the east of the city, the Wanda Metropolitano' near Barajas Airport. The new stadium will have a capacity of almost 73,000 but it remains to be seen whether it will ever be able to achieve a similar cult status as its predecessor.

It suddenly rises up in a residential area of Madrid alongside the River Manzanares. The Madrid urban motorway runs under the main stand. The floodlights hang on rusty steel structurse, plants thrive on the steps of the stands, foundations appear to be crumbling with cracks evident, making it border on the derelict. But when the stadium fills up the 'shabby' becomes 'beautiful' again.

Loud and intimidating

Here the fans raw like elsewhere when one of their players prevents a corner or if an apparently lost ball is pressed over the sidelines for a throw in at the last moment. The players at Atlético have long been known for working hard on the pitch – which the supporters in the stands take as a permanent incentive for unbridled ecstasy. Loud and passionate.

Bayer 04 will experience this inimitable atmosphere for a third time on Wednesday. In the first two meetings, the Werkself tested Atlético all the way. The attritional battle in the Round of 16 second leg two years ago, that went to penalties after a goalless 90 minutes and extra time, is remembered by all Leverkusen supporters. In the first fixture between the two clubs in the Europa League in 2010 Bayer 04 secured a 1-1 draw after Eren Derdiyok opened the scoring. Now, in the third and final visit to the Vicente Calderón, the prospects are not great of overturning the 4-2 defeat in the first leg at the BayArena.

“Regain confidence”

"We all know it'll be an incredible challenge," said Bayer 04 sporting director Rudi Völler, "but in games like this the team can regain a huge amount of confidence." In that respect, for the Vicente Calderon the words of Frank Sinatra in his homage to New York hit the nail on the head: "If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere."