If Perpignan had their way Saturday's ground-breaking Heineken Cup match against Toulon would have been played at Camp Nou, the iconic home ground of Barcelona FC.

As it is the game will be played at the city's Estadi Olimpic Montjuic instead, meaning rather than 90,000 fans the match will be played out in front of 'just' 55,000 in what is being billed locally as "la fête de la catalanité".

That may be 35,000 fans down on what might have been, but with the 'sell-out' already up it still means that Saturday's game will attract a record attendance for a Heineken Cup quarter-final - beating the previous best of 48,500 achieved twice at Lansdowne Road.

For Perpignan this is their long-awaited opportunity to export rugby across the border into their cultural Spanish heartland, much like Biarritz have been for some time now by moving their major 'home' games across to the Basque heartland of San Sebastian.

History being made in Spain

The Estadi Olimpic will be awash with the Perpignan and Catalan "sang et orr" [blood and gold] on Saturday, but Jacque Brunel's team will be up against the nouveaux riche of European rugby as the Toulon all-stars come to town ready to play their role of party-poopers. Toulon are expected to bring up to 6,000 of their own rugby-mad fans, with the ensuing spectacle set to prove one of the atmospheric highlights of this season's rugby calendar.

Stepping out in front of such fervour could throw some players off their game, but Toulon are already accustomed to such crowds as they have been relocating their major home games to the nearby Stade Vélodrome in Marseille (capacity 60,000) in recent seasons. Philippe Saint-André's team has experienced indifferent form during the past six weeks - with away defeats at Agen, Clermont and Castres - but they go into Saturday's match bolstered by their 38-10 weekend mauling of Stade Francais and with the knowledge they also won 29-20 in Perpignan earlier in the season.

On their day they are a match for anyone, as witnessed twice already this season during their debut campaign in Europe's premier club rugby competition. Their 19-13 away win at London Irish proved absolutely crucial in terms of securing qualification for this quarter-final, while their subsequent 32-16 destruction of Munster at the Stade Félix Mayol underlined just how far this team has already come in its development under Saint-André.

Multi-millionaire club owner Mourad Boudjellal may publicly talk of preferring domestic honours over European, but even he understands the raised global awareness that success in the Heineken Cup brings.

The keys to Saturday's encounter, as ever, will be to win the battle up front and retain discipline. Should either side err in the latter department then the respective boots of Jérôme Porical (Perpignan) and Jonny Wilkinson (Toulon) stand to prosper.

One of Toulon's undoubted strengths is their formidable back row, with South African Joe Van Niekerk, Argentine Juan Lobbe and Australian George Smith supplemented by the gnarled expertise of English "gratteur" Joe El-Abd.

It is in this area that the visitors could hold the upper hand over their hosts, with the back-row trio - whoever is selected - charged with the dual role of providing forward momentum and also preventing clean ball to the Perpignan backs. Should Toulon gain the upper hand in this area then the experienced half-back partnership of Pierre Mignoni and Wilkinson will be free to stamp their imprint on the match.

Captain Van Niekerk said this week that Toulon did not feel any extra pressure due to the occasion and venue of the match, although he did admit to huge anticipation.

"The atmosphere in Barcelona will be amazing," he told ercrugby.com. "Neither Perpignan nor Toulon have ever played there before so it is going to be absolutely fantastic. We will be taking around 6,000 fans with us and they will make enough noise to sound like 10,000. I'm really looking forward to playing in front of a massive crowd, in a great stadium. We will be very focused and anything can happen in a one-off game," he added.

Heineken Cup 2010/11 Results and Tables