credit – Real Madrid, screengrab

Real Madrid's cathedral of a soccer stadium has just finished state-of-the-art renovations that include a retractable roof and—if it can be believed—a retractable field.

You read that correctly. When the 12-time champions of Europe are not in action, the entire natural grass pitch is moved on segmented, hydraulic-powered platforms onto shelves in an underground greenhouse 4 stories deep.

Inside it's bathed in UV growing lights for 14 hours and routinely watered until game day.

The stadium, known as the Santiago Bernabeu, underwent five (active) years of renovations starting in 2017 that cost a total of €1.17 billion, which was almost double the original cost because of delays from the pandemic and the war in Ukraine.

A fixed roof of 28,000 m² and a retractable roof of 8,000 m² allow the stadium to be used every day of the year, regardless of weather conditions. The retractable pitch was unveiled to many fans as a delightful joke—when the club posted pictures on their social media accounts of the famous stadium with no pitch and a giant hole in the floor.

The underground greenhouse is equipped with ventilation, climate control, lighting, monitoring, and irrigation systems, ensuring optimal conditions for turf preservation and facilitating continuous maintenance without interfering with stadium events.

There's probably something to be said for efficiency and water savings by preventing the Sun from drying out the pitch, but at the end of the day, it's more just about the incredible engineering accomplishment.

credit – Real Madrid, released

The Estadio Santiago Bernabeu and its new screen and stand during the match against Bayern Munich in 2024. credit – CC 4.0. BY SA, Zoser, retrieved from Wikimedia.

The significant aspect of this pitch removal and preservation system is that it's entirely developed within the stadium's existing floorplan without occupying any external space whatsoever. This unique feature makes this system a one-of-a-kind engineering marvel in the world.

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Suspended from the roof is a new 360° LCD screen, also a first of its kind in a European stadium, which displays multiple content zones simultaneously, including live video, instant replays, statistics, graphics, animations, and sponsorship messages in an unbroken ring around the entire stadium.

The renovations take the stadium capacity up to 85,000, with a full-stadium suite of accessibility and disabled seating and infrastructure to ensure that everyone gets to enjoy arguably the most famous seats in all soccer.

WATCH the pitch get stored underground…

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