Bernabéu

This guide to the Bernabeu in Madrid opens in 1944, when no bank in a city still scarred by civil war would lend Real Madrid a peseta toward president Santiago Bernabeu's plan for the biggest stadium in Europe. It follows treasurer Luis Corrales's scheme to sell bonds directly to club members in staggered rounds, and the sympathetic banker who covered the rest. Workers battled material shortages and a stubborn railway line running past the construction site for years.