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Warsaw opens her arms to the weary

Rising like a king's crown on the banks of the Vistula in Warsaw lies Poland's National Stadium and tonight 58,500 loyal subjects - plus 150 million around the world watching on TV - will file into their seats to worship what Uefa president Michel Platini declared ahead of the opening match as the greatest game known to humans.

What other sport would possess a 45-year-old man to heed football's regal call and fly 8,000 kilometres from Beijing to London - and then jump in a Land Rover to drive over two days and nights another 1,900 kilometres to secure a ringside seat at history in the making? But then this is no ordinary kickabout. This is the marquee European model - arguably the best tournament on offer, the real deal.

Can Spain give its disaffected citizens something to sing about and be crowned the kings of the beautiful game, notching up Euro 2008-World Cup 2010-Euro 2012 titles? Spaniards can dare dream as can the underdog hosts, the Polish and Ukrainians. So, too, the other 13 teams and their tens of thousands of fans descending on Eastern Europe, all wearing their colours with pride and preparing to cry two types of tears, those of insane joy and inconsolable grief.

The unfolding drama will reveal all, but I am sure of one thing - the most dispiriting effect on the weary football-loving navigator is arriving in a strange city at dusk. Hungry, tired, disorientated and shaking with the vibrations induced after a marathon road trip, I turned a corner and the National Stadium loomed on the Warsaw skyline like a homing beacon. The evocative Polish capital has over the past 50 years been slowly rebuilt after Hitler razed it as punishment for the Warsaw Uprising during the second world war. Only 15 per cent of the original architecture remained after Nazi bulldozers rolled through and what was rebuilt by the Stalinists after Poland succumbed to Eastern Bloc dominance was mostly drab, soul-sucking communist edifices, satanic factories and tenement housing.

But since joining the European Union in 2004 and in the four years since Uefa awarded Poland joint-host rights, modernity and creativity have taken hold and the National Stadium is the latest structure to usher in the revival of this proud Slavic nation. It was the first landmark I recognised and it bristled with anticipation - as it does now with only hours before kick-off.

Naturally, the first thing the wayfarer decides when lost is to switch off the GPS, ignore the maps and pull over at a taxi rank where waiting Skoda carriages fly the eagle-emblazoned 'Polska!' flags from their windows. 'Follow me,' says Viktor as he led me through the suburbs to unwittingly link me with once more with China - this time via a camping site named after an iconic Chinese cooking utensil.

Thanks to Viktor, I have made the SCMP base camp with my Land Rover at Camping Wok, a 20-minute bus ride from the citadel of Polish football. It seems no matter how far I travel, China's far-reaching spatula refuses to toss me from its orb.

Camping Wok is named after the owner's initials and this excellent site has a bar and restaurant, friendly staff, free wifi, clean toilets and - crucially - no drunken English fans singing 'No Surrender' at 4am in the morning - at least not yet. I am nestled among pine trees and the dawn chorus is my carbon-free alarm clock: birdsong. In a capital city! The last time I saw a bird in my adopted home of Beijing I was eating it in a dish of gong bao chicken, and it was far from organic.

'Call me anytime you need a lift,' says Viktor as he pressed his business card into my hand. 'But not on Friday night. I will be at home watching the football,' he says. Tonight, thousands of Poles will carry with them the collective hope of this most hospitable of nations to watch coach Franciszek Smuda and his men play Greece.

More than 100,000 fans will flock to the Fan Zone near the imposing Palace of Culture - and a large H&M underwear advert showing David Beckham wearing a vest and a quiff; modernity comes at a price in the land that gave us Chopin.

The Polish have promised an unforgettable curtain-raiser to this unique football celebration. 'The 12-minute opening ceremony will combine heritage and innovation, to bring sport and culture together,' Uefa says. Renowned Hungarian classical pianist Adam Gyorgy will perform a Chopin Etude in A Minor, 'to bring the pure classical tradition into a sport environment'.

Gyorgy was previously a member of the Hungarian national futsal team. I wonder if he's heading to Ukraine and, if so, would he like to ride shotgun in my Land Rover to Kiev. The long drive would give me amble time explain why, with such talented feet, he should have persevered with our species' best sport.

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