Real Madrid Once Played A Six-Minute Game At The Santiago Bernabeu

The 'Galactico' era at Real Madrid is remembered for a plethora of reasons but a six minute game is understandably not one of them.

But that's exactly what happened in January 2005 when Los Blancos hosted Real Sociedad in a La Liga fixture.

The story goes that the two sides were playing out a 1-1 draw and approaching the 87th minute when the stadium had to be evacuated due to a bomb scare.

All players and supporters had to vacate the premises after someone claiming to be part of Basque group ETA said that an explosion would occur at 9pm inside the Santiago Bernabeu.

It proved to be nothing more than hoax but for security reasons the game was abandoned.

Then weeks later, the final minutes of the fixture were played. Incredibly, they technically had two managers during the same game as Vanderlei Luxemburgo replaced Mariano Garcia Remon in the hot-seat.

Both sets of players and fans were back at the ground to start the game from the 87th minute. And despite it being an extremely short encounter, there was a goal to celebrate.

Ronaldo Nazario's trickery inside the area led to him being brought down and a penalty being awarded. Zinedine Zidane stepped up and converted from 12 yards to give Los Blancos a bizarre but massive victory.

Another mad, unprecedented La Liga fixture happened a couple of years before when Barcelona signed Ronaldinho from Paris Saint-Germain for £21 million.

His eagerly-awaited home debut was set for the visit of Sevilla on 3 September but a few issues arose. The game came right before an international break and Ronaldinho needed to fly out to Brazil to join up with his teammates for a game against Ecuador on 10 September.

His eagerly-awaited home debut was set for the visit of Sevilla on 3 September but a few issues arose. The game came right before an international break and Ronaldinho needed to fly out to Brazil to join up with his teammates for a game against Ecuador on 10 September.

The solution from Joan Laporta, Barca's president at the time, was to have the game kick-off in the very early hours of Wednesday morning, at 12:05am.

Barcelona decided to add to the matchday experience for their supporters by opening their historic museum later as well as dishing out 25,000 free bags of Doritos with salsa dip, 30,000 Actimel yogurts, 100,000 KitKats and chorizo for the 80,000 that packed into the Nou Camp.

Featured Image Credit: Image: Real Madrid

Topics: Real Madrid, Real Sociedad, La Liga

Josh Lawless

Josh is a sports journalist who specialises in football and wrestling. He has been published by Curzon Ashton FC, Late Tackle, Manchester City FC, The Mirror, Read Man City and Manchester Evening News. He provides coverage of professional wrestling and has interviewed some of the biggest names in the field - including the first UK interview with The Hardy Boyz after their return to WWE. He has never sported a pair of Lonsdale Slip-ons, contrary to reports.

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