A visit to the Bernabeu can come as a culture shock if youve been brought up watching English lower league football played at tumbledown grounds lined with sheets of corrugated iron and tucked behind rows of terraced houses.

Slap bang in the middle of Madrids most exclusive neighbourhood, the Bernabeu shares the same address as the headquarters of banks, multinational companies and designer boutiques.

The stadium is impressive and you cant help but draw breath once youre inside, casting your eyes over the 80,000 dark blue seats rising steeply into the Madrid sky.

Around 90,000 crammed in here for the final of the 1982 World Cup. My first visit was 10 years later, when I was drawn there to see a fading Maradona play for Sevilla against Real Madrid.

Maradona was seriously overweight and looked desperately unhappy. He still managed a couple of touches that hinted at the old genius but Sevilla were hammered 5-0, Chilean striker Ivan Zamorano getting a first-half hat-trick.

The strange thing was that the Real fans werent in raptures. Instead they were taking it all in their stride. It was all a bit too easy, all a bit too predictable.

Earlier this season, the current Real Madrid president Ramon Calderon made an unguarded comment that revealed much about the atmosphere at the Bernabeu.

“It’s a stadium where people behave as if it were the theatre,” said Calderon. “The people don’t support the team, not like they do in Italy and England.”

It is actually more like a bull ring, a place were dedicated Madridistas come in the hope of seeing a spectacle, a mixture of sport and art with a fair dose of cruelty.

When the players do turn it on, the Bernabeu can bring the house down. When things go wrong the fans turn nasty. Poor play will provoke a chorus of shrill whistles or worse still a pañolada a mass waving of white handkerchiefs in best bullfighting tradition.

The elderly cigar-chomping man who sits just below the press box is a classic Madridista. Hes been coming to the Bernabeu for nearly as long as it has been standing. He claims there is no one to equal Alfredo Di Stefano and believes Fabio Capello should never have been allowed to take charge because his teams are too defensive.

Since the arrival of the Galacticos there are more foreigners, ex-pats and tourists in the crowd, easily spotted because of Beckham shirts, but the old core of supporters remains. Three years without a major trophy has hit them hard, but even though they are desperate for silverware they still demand victory with style.

Simon Baskett is Reuters sports correspondent in Madrid