It was shortly after 7.43pm when Real Madrid’s players strode out of the tunnel to a piece of music including the lyrics “ladies and gentlemen what you are about to witness is no illusion”. Never has a song choice been more appropriate.
Bournemouth supporters used to watching Accrington Stanley and the like during an undistinguished 114-year history formed a guard of honour outside the ground to welcome their most unlikely of opponents.
Mighty Madrid brought virtually an entire first team of superstars for their fleeting, albeit lucrative, visit to the south coast.
Queues of sun worshippers heading to Bournemouth beach were joined in traffic jams by football fans from as far afield as Japan flocking to catch a glimpse of Cristiano Ronaldo and his galaticos team-mates.
Max Demin, the Championship team’s wealthy Russian owner, had paid Real a £750,000 appearance fee to grace his side’s intimate Goldsands Stadium ground. Determined to recoup some of that outlay last season’s League One runners-up erected a 2,500-seat temporary stand, raising the capacity to 11,772. Chairman Eddie Mitchell even invited Ted MacDougall, the club’s greatest player, to fly in from the Untied States to open the stand, named in his honour 45 minutes before kick-off.
Undeterred by a hefty price of £60 a head, Bournemouth followers queued overnight to get their hands on precious tickets.
Excitement levels rose when Carlo Ancelotti, the Real manager, announced his 23-man squad on Saturday afternoon. Ronaldo, Karim Benzema, Luka Modric and Sami Khedira were all included in a starting XI including 10 full internationals.
Ronaldo was given a standing ovation. The swaggering Portuguese star almost opened the scoring as early as the sixth minute with a trademark 35-yard free-kick, which grazed the crossbar.
Ronaldo, who revelled in the role of crowd pleaser, did not make the same mistake twice, picking out the bottom left hand corner with a free kick from an almost identical position 16 minutes later to open the scoring.
Bournemouth battled gamely before two goals in three minutes from Ronaldo, in the 41st minute, and the German Khedira helped Real race into a 3-0 half-time lead.
Another man attracting admiring glances from the Premier League is Arsenal target Gonzalo Higuaín and the Argentine wasted little time making his mark on the night that will go down in Bournemouth history after coming on as half time substitute.
Higuain made it 4-0 within two minutes of the resumption before Ángel di María and Casemiro completed the rout.
Match details
Bournemouth (4-4-2): Flahavan; Francis, Cook, Elphick, Daniels; Coulibaly, Arter, MacDonald, Fraser, Pitman, Grabban. Subs Jalal, Ward, Thomas, Hughes, Stockley, Purches, Harte, McDermott, Matthews, Addison, Wakefield, Chiedozie.
Real Madrid (4-3-3): Lopez; Carvajal, Khedira, Coentroa, Pepe; Ozil, Modric, Nacho; Isco, Benzema, Isco. Subs Fernandez, Mejias, Kaka, Higuain, Morata, Di Maria, Illarramendi, Casemiro, Cheryshev, Mateos, Quini, Casado.
Referee L Probert (Wiltshire).