In hosting Manchester City on Tuesday, Real Madrid will defend a 57-year-old unbeaten home record for opening European Cup matches.
In each of the previous 42 editions of the European Cup and Champions League, Los Merengues have never lost their opening home match of the competition at the Santiago Bernabeu.
In fact, according to the club’s official website, they have only ever twice drawn their first game of the competition at the Santiago Bernabeu – against Anderlecht in 1962-63 and Barcelona in 1960-61 – and have won the 40 other opening home matches played.
From these 42 games, their home defence has only conceded more than one goal in both those aforementioned draws and on only a further two occasions.
Los Blancos have similarly only failed to score more than one goal in an opening European Cup game in front of their home support on two occasions, never failing to score at least once.
The last time Real Madrid conceded more than once in their first Champions League match at the Bernabeu was against Marseille in 2003-04 and the last time they failed to score more than once was in 2000-01 in hosting Spartak Moscow.
