'There's something very Tottenham about the new stadium' - Finn Bálor

We all remember where we were last week when Lucas Moura sent us into Champions League dreamland.

For WWE Intercontinental Champion and renowned Spurs fan Finn Bálor, the night of Wednesday 8 May involved crowding around a tiny screen with his family backstage at a WWE live event in Belfast, still in his wrestling gear just moments after successfully defending his title against fellow grappler Elias, to witness the historic closing minutes unfold in Amsterdam.

What happened in those moments – as Lucas slid home his hat-trick goal against Ajax in stoppage time to book our place in the Champions League Final – reduced the 37-year-old tough guy to tears.

“We were in Belfast, I was in a kitchen with the WWE catering team watching on a phone and I was hugging the catering guys, we were all crying!” Finn told us as he took a look around our new stadium today (Tuesday). “My parents were there as well so it was an incredible occasion.

“I got back to the hotel that night, laid down with my phone to watch the manager’s interview, started crying again, watched the highlights and started crying again. The whole last week has been really surreal. I watched Lucas’ stuff with the Brazilian media too when he started crying as well and that got me going again!

“I’m a stubborn Irishman and I get a lot of flak for not showing emotion or not showing how I truly feel but man, that was probably the most emotional night of my life last week! The tears were flowing – I don’t know when the next time I’ll be crying will be but hopefully it will be tears of joy at the Champions League Final. The plan is to be out there (in Madrid) for the weekend and soak up the atmosphere. Hopefully we’ll get to the game. Myself and my brother and going to be out there, we’re lifelong fans, so we’ll see how it goes.”

Ahead of his return to the ring on WWE SmackDown Live at the 02 in London tonight, Finn gave a massive seal of approval to our new home after exploring the facilities during a brief period of down-time.

“The stadium… there’s something very Tottenham about it,” he said. “It still feels like White Hart Lane, even though it’s a brand new stadium, which is something that’s very important, not only to me, but to all Tottenham fans. Getting to walk around and go behind the scenes – we call it backstage in wrestling – there’s so much character, so much individualism and the food smells incredible. I don’t know if it suits the diet that I’m on but I really fancied some of the food in there! It’s an incredible stadium and I’m looking forward to getting to see a game here.”