The Opening Ceremony of the Champions League Final

The final is more than a match, and its opening ceremony is part of what makes it so. Before the football starts, the stadium stages a presentation that marks the end of the competition, and the ritual is designed to turn a fixture into an event.

What the ceremony is

The opening ceremony is a staged presentation before the final. It takes place in the stadium once the crowd has gathered and before the teams begin, and it combines music, choreography and the symbols of the competition to mark the occasion.

It is the final's own ritual. Unlike the anthem, which sounds before every match, the ceremony belongs to the last game of the season, and it is built for the single night that decides the trophy.

The anthem in the ceremony

The anthem has a central place in the ceremony. It sounds as the teams line up, and at the final it is performed in front of the largest crowd of the competition, so the music that opens an ordinary European night is heard at its most ceremonial.

The moment is one of the most photographed of the season. The teams in a line under the floodlights, the trophy in view and the anthem playing make up the tableau that the competition uses to present its showpiece.

The scale of the occasion

The ceremony matches the scale of the final. The venue is chosen well in advance, the presentation is prepared for a global broadcast, and the show is designed to reach an audience far larger than the crowd in the stadium.

That scale is deliberate. The final is the competition's greatest event, and the ceremony announces it as such, framing the match as the conclusion of a season that began in the league phase months before.

The ritual around the trophy

The trophy itself is part of the ritual. It is present at the final and given to the winning captain after the match, and the ceremony sets up the moment when the silver cup is lifted, which is the image the night is remembered by.

The trophy and the ceremony belong together. The presentation leads to the lifting, and the whole ritual is arranged around the single act of a captain raising the cup for the winning club.

Reading the ceremony

The ceremony should be read as the final's frame. It surrounds the match without deciding it, marking the occasion and leading to the trophy, and it turns ninety minutes of football into a night with a beginning, a middle and an end.

For a reader, the ceremony explains why the final feels different from every other match. The football is the same, but the ritual around it is unique to the last night of the season, and that is what makes the final the competition's showpiece.

• The opening ceremony is staged before the final.
• It belongs to the final, not to every match.
• The anthem is heard at its most ceremonial there.
• The presentation is prepared for a global broadcast.
• The trophy is part of the ritual of the night.
• The ceremony frames the final as the season's conclusion.

The opening ceremony is the frame around the final. It belongs to the last night of the season, it presents the competition and its trophy to a global audience, and it turns the deciding match into an event with a shape and a ritual of its own.