Five things you may not know about the Madrid Derby
With the city of Madrid boasting two of the very best teams in Spanish and European football history, the capital city rivalry is an exciting and fascinating one. So much history… but here are five things you might not know about the fixture.
A group of Basque students living in Madrid attended the first ever Copa del Rey final in 1903 between Bilbao’s Athletic Club and Madrid FC, the team that would go on to become Real Madrid. They disliked the way Madrid FC played and 18 days later created a Madrid-based subsidiary of Athletic… which would go on to become Atletico Madrid.
Between 1999 and 2013, Atletico Madrid endured derby hell. They didn’t win in 25 meetings with Real Madrid, until the arrival of Diego Simeone eventually changed their fortunes. Since Los Rojiblancos’ overdue victory, the derby balance has shifted; they’ve won 10 of the 36 derbies played since then, while also drawing 12 and losing 14 (all competitions). The record in La Liga is five victories and six defeats in 20 derbies.
During the 1970s, the tradition of celebrating titles with fellow fans of your team at certain points in the city began to emerge in Spanish football. The Cibeles fountain, located in the very centre of Madrid, emerged as an ideal meeting point for such fans and, though today closely associated with Real Madrid, it was actually Atleti fans who first started to hold their celebrations there, after a La Liga title win in 1977.
Over time, other fans began to copy them and it became the fan meeting point in the city for title wins; throughout the 1980s, Real Madrid fans would celebrate the victories of the iconic Quinta del Buitre generation there. By the time Atlético won another title in 1991 – the Copa del Rey – Cibeles had become so closely associated with Real Madrid that their fans decided to move their celebrations 600 metres down the city’s Paseo de la Castellana avenue to Netptune’s fountain.
Today, Real Madrid’s arch rivals are FC Barcelona but the Madrid Derby was a bigger deal in the first couple of decades after the Spanish Civil War ended in 1939. As the all-time great Alfredo Di Stéfano once said: “Forget Barcelona… the team that can frustrate us is Atletico.”
Real Madrid’s Santiago Bernabeu stadium is, funnily enough, a very special place for Atletico Madrid fans. Los Colchoneros have won the Copa del Rey on 10 occasions, with a remarkable nine of those successes coming at their arch rivals’ stadium. Of their 10 cup final successes, only the 1996 victory against Barcelona was held at a different ground: Real Zaragoza’s La Romareda.
