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Today, the Millennium Stadium in the Welsh capital of Cardiff will play host to the biggest game in club football, the Champions League final. You probably already know that. What you probably do not know is that the venue was once at the mercy of a hex which doomed one side whenever they played a major final at the stadium.
Oddly, Real Madrid, the delegated away team for today's fixture, has the 2002 Stoke City squad to thank for the removal of the jinx. Without the Potters’ highly unusual spell-squashing tactics, Cristiano Ronaldo and company could very well have lost before kick off.
Since its opening in 1999, Millennium Stadium has hosted more than 350 events from concerts to cricket to major motorcycle races. It has a special reputation in rugby as it was the site for the sport’s 1999 and 2007 World Cups. However, the stadium’s event list is not too shabby when it comes to soccer.
Beware of the curse. Photo: @tickets_here_ | Twitter
Most notably, the Welsh arena held six FA cups finals from 2001-2006 as England’s Wembley Stadium was under construction, and fans will also remember the 11 Olympic soccer matches played in the venue during the 2012 Olympics.
These are the facts of the field; easy to understand and not too difficult to collect from sports news and archives. What's less sure and harder to comprehend is the ominous force that fell on Millennium Stadium in its early years. Up until 2002, the winners of the first 11 major cup finals hosted at the venue had a peculiar thing in common — they all occupied the home team locker rooms.
It was such a prominent trend, in fact, that it was adamantly claimed that the away locker room (on the south side) was cursed. In March 2002, one Dr. Paul Darby from Nottingham attempted to lift the curse with a ceremony in the south end room involving scattered incense and sea salt, Buddhist chanting, redecoration and lighting candles. It didn’t work.
Do NOT go in there. Photo: @Daniels_Paul | Twitter
A few days later, away team Cambridge United lost the LDV Vans Trophy final to home team Blackpool. Two months later, the 2002 Division Two playoff rolled around and Stoke City had the chance to reclaim a place in the First Division, a status they had forfeited in 1998.
Despite the fact that just the weekend before the seemingly almighty Chelsea had fallen victim to the curse in the FA Cup final, superstitious Stoke manager Gudjon Thordarson was not about to let voodoo halt his side. Once given the keys to the dreaded dressing room, the team decided to execute a feng-shui experiment in hopes of turning their luck.
Stoke put their fate in a famous painter at the time, Andrew Vicari. Vicari was commissioned to paint a 7-foot-high mural on the wall of the away locker room before match day. Vicari, with the help of a fengshui expert, brought to life a vibrant phoenix and sun design made up of reds, yellows and earthy colors that was thought to improve the flow of energy in the space.
Did the artist have the magic to lift the curse? Apparently. Stoke went on to beat Brentford 2-0 and attain the coveted spot. The players say that the win vanquished the jinx once and for all.
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