Welcome everybody to Soccer 101. My name is Taylor Rockwell, and we are recording this episode in very late May of 2024, just before this weekend's Champions League Final between Berusia Dortmund and Real Madrid.

The final will be hosted at Wembley Stadium, everyone's favorite iconic stadium, most notably Graham Ruffin, who is here with me today to talk about the history of Wembley Stadium, more accurately Wembley stadiums, as well as its most iconic matches and moments and the pros and cons of the

crown jewel of British football architecture and infrastructure. And there are no other contenders.

Is that right, Graham?

Yeah, absolutely. I'm excited to talk about a stadium where I once paid 25 pounds for a hot dog

and a beater. The home of football is what is

widely known as. The home of ripping me off, if you ask me. I did not realize that they were

that expensive. I am not surprised that they are, but it's good to know that American

stadiums are not alone in having exorbitant prices for things. Oh, no, it's American

stadiums and Wembley. That's the grouping.

So, Graham, in terms of this conversation, this episode, it feels like the questions we are going

for would be, what is Wembley Stadium and why does it get the billing that it does? What is its history?

Those are two different questions. Is its reputation earned, aka what are the strengths and drawbacks of present-day Wembley, and how does it compare to modern football facilities? That's kind of the basic outline that I came up with from some of the bullet points we have to get through today. Yeah, I think so. Shall we start with kind of the outline of actually what Wembley Stadium is? So I'd imagine most listeners have heard of Wembley Stadium. But if you haven't, it is the National Stadium of England. It is in London, to be precise, which I don't know if that's considered a nice bit of London or not. This is where Ryan would come in handy with his knowledge of the most overrated city in the world.

Wherever Ryan is at present is the nice bit of London. I think that works. And where he's not is the bad part. Yeah, it's like it just follows him around. It's like a circle. But Wembley is a stadium that hosts England's home matches and this weekend, as you mentioned, Taylor. will host the Champions League final one week after hosting the F.A. Cup final and the championship

playoff final in back-to-back days.

So that was quite an eventful weekend. The Euro 2020 final was played there. It was the scene

of the most glorious moment in soccer history. K. Leary's horse-collaring of Bacca, of course.

It's also your standard modern stadium and that it hosts other

events like Taylor Swift is doing eight nights there this summer and ACDC are playing there and so is

Bruce Springsteen. So it's sort of, it's like the big stadium that every, that most big cities have,

right? Like New York has MetLife Stadium. Where Wembley is different is that it has a reverence that MetLife certainly doesn't have. You'll hear it called the... I've been to MetLife Stadium. I also paid something comparable to 25 pounds for a hot dog and a beer. I got nachos there that weren't nachos. It was just crisps, chips with cheese sauce in it. But Wembley, you'll hear

being called, that is not nachos. I'm not willing to accept that. You'll hear it called

...