Football Cities: Madrid
We’ve already looked at Barcelona on our football cities series and its many club sides, but today we’ll be looking at their city rivals in El Clasico, Real Madrid.
However, Los Blancos are not the only team in Spain’s capital with their fierce city rivals Atletico Madrid on the rise over the last few years. There’s even a third team from Madrid in La Liga who we’ll cover as well in this article.
We’ll start with Real though who are steeped in footballing history. From the early days of the European Cup, Los Blancos quickly established themselves as one of the continents biggest clubs, winning the first five editions of the competition. To this day, that trophy is still the most important to the fans of Real, so its a good job that the club holds the record for the most titles with 13, which is six more than the next best side AC Milan.
The club also holds the record for the most La Liga titles in Spain with 34 and the most FIFA Club World Cup trophies with four. On top of that, Los Blancos have also won 19 Copa del Rey titles, 12 Supercopa de Espana’s, two UEFA Cup’s and four UEFA Super Cup’s.
Real have eight more La Liga titles than Barcelona but that’s mainly down to two factors. Firstly the side from the capital have been a successful club for most of their history and had more consistent periods of success than their Catalan rivals.
The main reason for that though is the two clubs’ differing philosophies on how football should be played and trophies should be won. Since Johan Cruyff’s revolution, Barcelona have championed the idea that football should be played with flair and possession with short passing. A style that has been developed by Pep Guardiola and is often referred to as Tiki-Taka.
Real Madrid on the other hand, don’t necessarily have a specific style but winning is paramount for them and to achieve that they began signing the best players in the world to form super teams. This lead to their team in the late 90’s and early 2000’s being dubbed the Galacticos with the likes of Raul, Zinedine Zidane, David Beckham and Ronaldo all featuring in that team.
Since then, they’ve also had the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo, Karim Benzema, Sergio Ramos, Toni Kroos and Luka Modric all grace the turf at the Santiago Bernabeu.
Across the city though are another of Real’s fiercest rivals, Atletico Madrid. Atleti are the third most successful club in Spain behind Los Blancos and Barca with 11 La Liga titles, 10 Copa del Rey’s and two Supercopa de Espana’s.
The club’s iconic red and white striped kit earned them the nickname of Los Colchoneros (Mattress Makers) because they look similar to the classic mattress design in Spain.
The club had mostly been a mainstay in Spain’s top flight but in 2000 they were relegated to the second tier despite reaching the final of the Copa del Rey. It was only the second time in 66 years that the club had been relegated and it took them two years to get back after narrowly missing out in the first season.
It would take Luis Aragones’ fourth and final spell as manager of the club to get them back to the top flight and it was inspired by the introduction of a homegrown striker who would become a legend both in Spain and England. That striker is of course Fernando Torres who probably spent his best years at Liverpool but his sale in 2007 helped fund the side that would ultimately lift two Europa League’s in three seasons.
The arrival of Diego Simeone in December 2011 was a huge turning point though. He was in charge when the club clinched the second Europa League but more importantly El Cholo turned the club back into perennial contenders again with likes of Diego Godin, Falcao, Saul and Koke in his best teams.
Under his management the club has won two La Liga titles (including last season), two Europa League’s, two UEFA Super Cup’s, one Copa del Rey and one Supercopa de Espana. The only shortcoming during his time in charge of Atleti was their two Champions League final appearances which both ended in heartbreaking losses to you guessed it, Real Madrid.
Rayo Vallecano on the other hand, are often overlooked by others or forgotten as a club that actually hails from Madrid. They do though, and they come from the smaller neighbourhood of Vallecas. Some know the club for there fantastic kits that were inspired by River Plate. In 1949 they reached an agreement with Atletico that allowed them to add a vertical red stripe across their white home kit like the Argentinian giants.
The Vallecans have spent most of their history since the 1950’s bouncing between the first and the second tier but in the early 2010’s they had a five year spell in La Liga with Diego Costa leading the line for part of that. Then after they were relegated in 2016 they spent four out of five seasons in the second tier before they finally made it back to the top flight this season where they sit 9th and look to spend another year there. They’ve only ever had one season in European competition which was 2000/01 but they might get back this year.#
A great city with three top flight teams. What more could you ask for?