Who would have thought in December 2019 that Budapest would soon become one of the most important cities in top European football again?
A Hungarian team has never played in a Champions League knockout game.
But now, within eight days, there are two first-knockout rounds of the first leg in the Puskás Aréna: RB Leipzig will face Liverpool on Tuesday, and Borussia Mönchengladbach will play against Manchester City on February 24.
Both Leipzig and Gladbach cannot play in their own stadiums because the Liverpool and Manchester teams are not allowed to enter Germany.
The reason is the current restrictions on people traveling from countries where the coronavirus mutation B.1.1.7 is widespread - such as in England.
According to UEFA regulations, the home team must organize an alternative venue in this case.
Otherwise the games against Leipzig and Gladbach would have been rated 0-3.
The Corona protection regulations in connection with the Uefa regulations now ensured that home teams in the Champions League and the Europa League were looking for solutions so that their games could take place.
Now - despite the corona pandemic - 16 teams are traveling across Europe so that they do not lose without a fight.
That leads to curious game day constructions like this one: TSG Hoffenheim is not allowed to go to Norway to Molde FK, so the teams will meet on Thursday around 2600 kilometers south in Villarreal, Spain.
A good two hours earlier, Villarreal's league rival Real Sociedad San Sebastian welcomed the English top club Manchester United - albeit in the Juventus stadium in Turin, Italy.
Leipzig's Hungarian national players Willi Orban and Peter Gulacsi are probably among the few who can get something positive out of "home game" trips.
For him, the game in Budapest was "personally a nice thing," said Gulacsi.
Orban, on the other hand, said to the kicker: "Of course we would have loved to play in Leipzig, in our living room, also because of the traveling."
The fact that Uefa wants to enforce their games in the form also caused criticism.
SPD general secretary Lars Klingbeil said on RTL: “Football has to ask itself whether you don't lose touch with reality here.
Everyone is restricted - and now we're relocating a game across Europe. "
Icon: The mirror
With material from the dpa