If the rain in Spain does indeed stay mainly in the plain, then the drops won't hit Jeff Brickner, the Bengals' whirling dervish director of operations planning the trip to Madrid for the past six months.

Brickner begins to finish his Picasso of a masterpiece Tuesday night when the Bengals board their 201-member traveling party on American Airlines' sprawling 306-seat jet for the eight-hour flight to the Spanish capital for Sunday's game (9:30 a.m.- Cincinnati’s Channel 5 and NFL Network) against the 3-5 Falcons.

"What was very attractive about this aircraft is it has 60 lay-flat seats," Brickner says. "Lay-flat is allowing our players to stretch out. And there are eight of them that are oversized and made for big people, so it gives those kinds of guys a little extra room."

Big not only as in Dexter Lawerence II and Amarius Mims and Orlando Brown Jr., but also big as in Joe Burrow and his NFL-leading 20 touchdown passes. If it sounds like Brickner has thought of everything, he has to, as he and his team build a temporary Spanish-style Paycor Stadium.

Equipment, food, software, hardware and everything from plugs to studs.

"The biggest thing is we're just trying to handle the details so the players and coaches can focus on football," Brickner says. "If they can go through the week without thinking about the logistics, we've done our job."

About a half hour after the Bengals did their job with some nifty teamwork on both sides of the ball that consumed the last five drives of Sunday's overtime win over the Titans, Brickner checked in with the part of his team leaving Sunday night for setup.

That included IT chief Jake Kiser sifting through plug adapters and step-down voltage convertors to ensure the Bengals' equipment can operate on Spain's electrical system.

Also on the way was the Vicar of Video, Travis Brammer, as well the man who is the pre-trip pick for behind-the-scenes MVP, trainer Roberto "Berto," Cardona. Cardona, a Texan who speaks fluent Spanish, has helped Brickner translate in all areas.

"Berto is smooth, and he's going to be carrying us pretty much," says equipment manager Adam Knollman.

Knollman has been doing some heavy lifting himself since the May announcement of the Bengals' third international game ever and first since the 2019 trip to London in head coach Zac Taylor’s first season.

"The day it was announced. That's when the planning started," Knollman says, "and it's honestly on your mind since whatever that day was. It consumes you."

While Brickner began collecting the players' passports in May to make sure they were updated, Knollman started his massive inventory for the bulging manifest that is demanded by customs before placed in the bottom of the plane. He's got an extra 2,000 pounds of just-in-case equipment, up from 10,000 for an AFC North game.

"You have to inventory it all the way down to the country of origin," Knollman says. "The quantity. Any item. Trunks get weighed, hampers get weighed. You've got to have the dimensions on there. You've got to have the country of origin of the trunk, and you've got to have the country of origin of all the contents inside the trunk. You've got to get a quantity of shirts, pants, any apparel that we pack."

One difference from '19 is that the makeup of every piece of clothing making the trip has to be chronicled. Shirts, shorts, pants, socks and what percentage of cotton or whatever else it is made of.

Yet the biggest difference of the 2019 and 2016 trips to the United Kingdom is that the Bengals are going early enough to enjoy a day to themselves, as well as practice twice. Taylor seemed uncomfortable with again trying to shoehorn the trip into about two days and one practice.

Which means instead of one practice and working out of a hotel ballroom, the Bengals are going to move into the home of the World Cup champs at the Spanish Football Federation international practice facility known as La Ciudad del Futbol, or The Football City, about 20 miles northwest of Madrid.

"We've been studying the layout of the locker room from pictures and videos, so we've got a pretty good idea how we're going to set it up," Knollman says.

They've got a head start. The Bengals had some supplies carried by ocean freighter, and they arrived two weeks ago at the practice facility, stadium and hotel. Mike Houk and other training room staffers coordinated the shipment of 17 pallets of water and Gatorade, as well as IT supplies for the meeting rooms.

Usually, he keeps one staffer behind, but Knollman and his two assistants,  Ryan Eckerle and Sam Staley, are bringing everybody. Bret Holt, Will Stamm and Jason Cook have to help set up not only the practice facility on Wednesday, but on Friday and Saturday the locker room at venerable Bernabeau Stadium.

The nearly 80-year-old structure seats more than 83,000, is one of the palaces of the soccer world and sparkles from the massive 2024 renovation. Bengals center and captain Ted Karras expects the retractable roof to be closed.

Brickner describes the playing surface as hybrid natural grass of Bermuda and Ryegrass and is dispatching each player four to six pairs of shoes with seven studs maybe being just the right pair.

"Their fields are on a hydraulic tray system. When they have their events, they hit a button, and it slides out from underneath eight stories," Brickner says. "They actually have grass that is growing with lights. So they have a whole new field that's underneath there. It's a beautiful place."

Also on the trip is Bengals chef Ory Maxwell, and he's expected to prepare a daily dish with a Spanish flair. Such as Jamon, a popular dry-cured Spanish ham and one of the most famous dishes in Spain.

The liaison for the hotel where the Bengals are staying made the trip to Philadelphia for the preseason game and videotaped how the Bengals are fed.

"They eat very healthy over there, o it should work out nicely," says Brickner, who has filed 130-page event banquet orders instead of the usual 90. "Our players are looking forward to some of the Spanish touches. They've done a lot of traveling and are used to that sort of thing."

Knollman has just one hesitation. When the game is over, all — ALL — of the Bengals' equipment is staying to speed up the trip home.  It will be gathered up, put on pallets on a truck and then loaded into the bottom of a commercial plane headed to Newark, New Jersey, on Monday. It will be trucked back to Paycor in time for Wednesday's practice.

"That's going to be a weird feeling walking out of the locker room like that," says Knollman, like a parent leaving a kid at summer camp.

Brickner isn't worried.

"The only thing we want to come back with," he says, "is a win."