Divided City: Madrid wear two different colours for CL final

Tomorrow Saturday 24th will witness the much talked about, much anticipated, red hot fever final between city rivals Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid in Lisbon, Portugal. 

Come saturday night Madrid bars will be packed with red-striped Atletico Madrid football fans and Real Madrid rivals, all in white, drinking and yelling the night away for the first one-city Champions League final. Though the two sides will not mix for the historic occasion, it will be a new test of a century-old rivalry between the two sides in the Spanish capital.

Shop windows dummies has been dressed in the rival team shirts and on public squares hang giant posters of each team's colours – red and white for the Atletico "Colchoneros" and meringue-white for the Real "Merengue". Kiosks near the Calderon sell women's pink scarves with the slogan: "Mummy made me pretty, smart and anti-Real Madrid". It rhymes in Spanish: "Guapa, lista, antimadridista." Continue....

"It is going to be a tense atmosphere. People will be very nervous," said an Atletico fan.

"The fans are going to spend the night each on their own turf with their own people," said Alejandro Lora, 64, president of an association of Real Madrid fan clubs. "There's a lot of excitement. They have been rivals since the very beginning."

Some 1 250 police will be on duty to prevent clashes.

Local authorities had planned to screen the match on Madrid's Puerta del Sol square. They changed their minds after security warnings. Instead, separate giant screens will go up at Real's Bernabeu stadium in the posh north and Atletico's Vicente Calderon in the poorer southwest.

Real and Atletico will dispute the final in Lisbon. If Real win it will be their 10th European title. For Atletico it would be a first.