Luis Aragonés plays for Atlético in heaven, but Real Madrid have better players down below
Ozren Podnar
Arguably the most significant sporting event in Madrid's history will not take place in the Spanish capital itself, but 500 km to the south-east. On May 24th Benfica's Luz stadium in Lisbon will entertain the Champions League final between Madrid's Atlético and Real.
Each club was allotted 17,000 tickets for their fans, but thousands of madrilenos will take the trip just to be near their heroes while they play the game of their lives. Video-walls will be erected to enable the ticketless fans to watch the game.
This season's final will be historic as the first involving teams from the same city, not just in the Champions League but in any European club competition. Should Real seize the trophy, it would be their tenth European title - the coveted "la décima", as they call it in Spanish. Their closest rivals, AC Milan, only have seven.
If Atlético win their "la primera" (the first one), Madrid will join Milan as the second city to have produced two European champions. Even more importantly, "Atleti" will chase away the ghosts haunting them since the heartbreaking loss to Bayern in the finals 40 years ago in Amsterdam.
When Luis Aragonés put Atlético ahead with a brilliantly taken free-kick in the 116th minute, the Cup seemed headed for Vicente Calderón. Their dreams were shattered 20 seconds before the end when burly fullback Georg Schwarzenbeck equalized with a speculative 35-yard shot that caught Miguel Reina stranded.
In the replay, Bayern distroyed the still mortified Spaniards 4-0. The red-and-whites fans' are comforting themselves with the belief that the recently deceased Aragonés now plays for their team in heaven, but his help may not be enough against Real Madrid's superior earthly firepower.
Nobility against working class
Atlético may be the newly crowned Spanish champions, but Real do have a better team, as befits a club from the top of the pecking order. They are soccer nobility. For decades they have enjoyed a reputation as the darlings of Madrid's and Spain's elites.
Crown Prince Felipe is one of the few prominent members of Spanish high society to declare himself an Atlético fan. Another is film director Santiago Segura, the creator of the famed black comedy antihero, inspector José Luis Torrente, who incidentally, is also an Atlético's aficionado himself.
The differences between the clubs are many. While Real's Santiago Bernabeu proudly rises on Paseo de la Castellana in a wealthy neighbourhood of northern Madrid, Atlético's less glamorous Vicente Calderón stands way down south, in the working class borough of Arganzuela.
Then there's the finances. Although "Atleti" have recently stepped into Deloitte's top-20 highest grossing clubs, they still lag far behind the first placed Real. The estimated 92 million euros transfer fee paid by the blancos to Tottenham for Gareth Bale amounts to 75 percent of Atlético's annual budget.
What is in the (nick)name
While the royals each summer sign a new galáctico, their more modest rivals are forced to sell their best players as soon as they achieve the right price. It is a matter of days before their star striker Diego Costa leaves for greener shores (perhaps those of the Thames), just as Fernando Torres, Diego Forlán, Sergio Agüero and Radamel Falcao did before him.
Even the nicknames reflect the contrast in social stature between the city rivals. Real are merengues (meringues), delicious cakes reserved for wealthier citizens; Atlético are indios (Indians), the losers in the battle against the whites, or colchoneros (mattress makers), after once-fashionable red and white striped mattresses.
However distant the clubs may be socially and financially, their fans' traditional gathering places - Atlético's Fuente de Neptuno and Real's Plaza de la Cibeles - are just 800 meters apart. Only one of them will be bustling with joy on Saturday, just before midnight. It will be either Madrid's fans celebrating "la décima", or Atlético's "la primera".
© Ozren Podnar & Soccerphile.com
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