European football authorities will breathe a sigh of relief when Poland kick-off football's European Championship on Friday against Greece in Warsaw's National Stadium.
For a long time it seemed the first major international football tournament to be held in eastern Europe might have to be moved elsewhere as co-hosts Poland and Ukraine struggled to upgrade venues and infrastucture in time for the four-yearly affair.
Warsaw's sparkling new stadium on the banks of the Vistula river, and new or refurbished stadiums at the other seven venues in the two countries are testament to the efforts - and billions of euros spent - to satisfy the demands of UEFA.
Not all is ready - some major roads and other infrastructure works have not been completed on time - but UEFA and its president Michel Platini say the hosts have met the grade, with Platini speaking of a "milestone" for European football.
"Work that usually takes 20 years has been done in three or four." UEFA secretary general Gianni Infantino said at the draw in Kiev at the end of the year.
Ukraine in particular has had much catching up to do over the past 18 months after the former Soviet republic received an ultimatum from Platini to accelerate its preparations or lose the right to host the tournament.
"We were always believing at UEFA that everything will work at the end of the day because we are seeing the enthusiasm and the passion the people in Poland and Ukraine are putting in. With this passion and enthusiasm you can hide a lot of small things," Infantino said.
Gdansk, Poznan, Warsaw and Wroclaw are the host venues in Poland, which has spent more than 30 billion dollars on infrastructure projects, including airports, roads and hotels. Of that sum, 1.5 billion dollars were towards building and renovating four stadiums.
In Ukraine, less is known about the figures spent, but an estimated 15 billion dollars have been invested, not including the private funding of stadium work in Donetsk and Kharkiv. Stadiums in Lviv and Kiev, however, cost the authorities more than 1 billion dollars, according to independent sources.
Now the flags are out in the host venues and the fan zones with their giant screens for live match coverage are ready for the influx of tens of thousands of foreign visitors for a tournament which will bring together 16 of the world's best teams.
Just how many fans arrive with teams like the Dutch, England and Germany remains to be seen. Reports indicate there is likely to be less of a following for the major sides than at past tournament, with supporters put off by long travelling distances, transport problems, inflationary accommodation prices and security fears.
Even modest Kiev hotels have demanded more than 1,000 dollars a night, and top end quotes have reportedly exceeded 3,000 dollars, prompting Ukraine's Prime Minister Mykola Azarov to order a national investigation.
On the sporting level, the tournament - which will expand to 24 finalists in France in four years - is often thought more difficult to win than a World Cup, with no easy matches in the group stage.
Three out of four semi-finalists of the 2010 World Cup in South Africa and five out of the 10 teams to have ever won the World Cup are vying for the crown worn by world champions Spain, who for most experts remain the favourites to lift the trophy in Kiev on July 1.
So far no nation has managed to win a third consecutive title following Euro and World Cup wins, but Spain with midfielders Xavi, Andres Iniesta and many of their Barcelona team-mates in the national team have dominated world football with a passing style that has become their trademark.
"The toughest thing is to win after winning," Spain coach Vicente Del Bosque has warned. "But now our goal is to win after winning and winning again."
Germany - beaten by Spain in the 2008 final and again in the semi-finals of the World Cup two years ago - are seen as the main challengers, but there are others who could surprise in what many experts believe to be an unpredictable tournament.
After all their efforts, the two hosts will also be out to do better than the 2008 co-hosts Switzerland and Austria who were eliminated at the group stage.
"I think there are two clear favourites: Germany and Spain, or rather Spain and Germany," Platini said. "If they are able to perform at 100 per cent Spain or Germany will be European champions, but if they can only play to 80 or 90 per cent they will have problems."
The former midfield maestro, who won the tournament as captain of France in 1984, expects an exciting and spectacular few weeks, but more than anything is pleased that the tournament UEFA awarded to Poland and Ukraine more than five years ago is going ahead as planned.
After the co-hosts became the first - in his words - to be shown two yellow cards each without receiving a red card, he is now able to write in the UEFA direct magazine: "This first European Championship in eastern Europe will be a milestone in UEFA competition history."