Real Madrid given helping hand by Eurovision

Real Madrid may have found a surprise ally in this year’s Eurovision Song Contest. Eurovision celebrations have been ongoing over the past week in Liverpool - which was designated to replace Ukraine as the host city due to the conflict with Russia. Events have been taking place daily in central Liverpool, culminating with the grand final this weekend. It has meant that all sporting events which were due to take place in the city had to be rearranged for security reasons. That includes Everton’s Premier League game against Manchester City at Goodison which was originally slated for Saturday but has now been moved to back to Sunday (10 a.m. EDT / 7 a.m. PDT).

Security reasons

Merseyside Police made a formal request to the English FA to ask that no matches should be played in the city on Saturday as there will already be a large concentration of people attending Eurovision and police officers would be stretched to the limit trying to control both events. City’s trip to Everton will take place on Sunday afternoon, which means Guardiola’s players will have less time to rest before their Champions League semi-final decider against Real Madrid. It’s the opposite of what happened ahead of the first leg when Real Madrid had a late kick-off in the Copa del Rey final while City’s league meeting with Leeds kicked off a few hours earlier.

Thanks to Eurovision, Real Madrid will have a little more time to rest and prepare for the semi-final return leg which will be played at the Etihad on Wednesday 17 May. Their next LaLiga match, at the Bernabéu against Getafe, will be played on Saturday, kicking off at the local time of 21:00 hours (3 p.m. EDT / 12 noon PDT). City meanwhile, are in action 19 hours later. On top of that they have to travel to Liverpool - about an hour’s journey. It may be only a minor difference but an extra half a day of rest is always welcome and in such a close tie, every little detail counts.