Chelsea's Cobham Training Base was located in the southern suburbs of London, thirty kilometers from the city center. The round trip took more than half an hour.
Because it was so far away, Real Madrid generally set out every morning and returned to the hotel in the evening, spending their lunch break at Cobham. The ingredients for their daily meals were flown directly from Madrid to London and prepared by Real Madrid's traveling chefs.
Cobham had cost a fortune to build. It covered 130 acres and contained fifteen football training pitches, as well as an indoor football pitch where training could continue even in winter. But Real Madrid had no use for any of that.
The First Team's training center was fully equipped, with extremely advanced facilities and management staff among the best in Europe. It gave everyone at Real Madrid a sense of Abramovich's investment. It was said that when he took over Chelsea in 2003, the Blues were still training at a run-down ground near Heathrow Airport, enduring the torment of aircraft taking off and landing every day.
Because they had arrived in London early, Real Madrid's coaching staff had been forced to alter their Wednesday and Thursday training plans. Although both sessions were held behind closed doors at Cobham, the team still did its best to avoid leaking information about their tactics in advance.
The outside world had also been speculating about what tactics Real Madrid would adopt in the final.
Would they use the more cautious three defensive midfielders? Or the balanced Double Defensive Midfielders?
It wasn't just outsiders searching for clues and guessing at Benitez's tactics. People within Real Madrid were doing the same. But Benitez refused to say a word, and the training sessions he arranged revealed nothing.
Over the past two days, Real