Atletico Madrid (Spain)

Club Atlético de Madrid was originally founded on 26 April 1903, as Athletic Club de Madrid by three Basque students living in Madrid. In 1904 members who were not happy with the way things were at Real Madrid joined them.

Their first home was Ronda de Vallecas, which was situated in the working-class area to the south of the city.In 1919, the Compañía Urbanizadora Metropolitana who ran the underground communication system in the city bought some land near to the Ciudad Universitaria. 

They decided to build a sports stadium named Estadio Metropolitano de Madrid. It had a capacity for 35.800 spectators, and from 1923 it was rented by Atlético de Madrid until 1966 when they moved to their new stadium.

The club won regional leagues until they were invited to become founder members of La Liga in 1928. They suffered a couple of relegations and subsequent promotions during this period. After La Liga resumed after the conflict of the Spanish Civil War in 1939 the club merged with Aviación Nacional of Zaragoza to become Athletic Aviación de Madrid. They went on to win La Liga in 1940 and 1941.

In 1941, a decree issued by Franco banned teams from using foreign names and the club became Atlético Aviacion de Madrid. In 1947, the club decided to drop the military association from its name and settled on its current name of Club Atlético de Madrid.




Two more consecutive tiles followed in 1950 and 1951 before the club entered their “golden age”. They offered the great Real Madrid side serious competition. Between 1961 and 1980, Real Madrid dominated La Liga with the club winning the competition 14 times. During this era only Atlético offered Real any serious challenge, winning La Liga titles in 1966, 1970, 1973, and 1977.

However things were different in European competition where Atletico won the Cup Winners Cup in 1962, before becoming losing finalists to Tottenham Hotspur the following season. They reached the European Cup final in 1974 before losing to Bayern Munich after a replay.

Star players of the day were Spaniards Adelardo, Luis Aragonés, Javier Irureta, and José Eulogio Gárate along with Argentinians Rubén Ayala, Panadero Díaz and Ramón "Cacho" Heredia. 

They were a good side but extremely uncompromising at the same time. During the 1974 European Cup run, in the away leg of the semi-final against Celtic, Atlético had Ayala, Díaz, and substitute Quique all sent off during a hard fought encounter in what was reported as one of the worse cases of cynical fouling the tournament has seen.


Veteran player Luis Aragonés soon became coach. Aragonés subsequently served as coach on four separate occasions (1974–80, 1982–87, 1991–93 and 2002–03) bringing home the club a league title and two Copa del Rey’s.

In 1987, controversial politician and businessman Jesús Gil became club president. Gil developed a reputation for his ruthlessness in the chase of honours. In pursuit of success, he hired and fired a number of head coaches, including César Luis Menotti, Ron Atkinson, Javier Clemente, as well as a returning club legend Luis Aragonés. He also closed down the clubs youth academy in 1992, which saw Raul leave to move across town and become one of the most legendary names in Spanish football.


In 1996, Radomir Antić, with a star studded squad delivered the league and cup double but only lasted two more years as Gil continued his ruthlessness. In December 1999, Gil and his board were suspended pending investigation into the misuse of club funds with a government-appointed administrator running Atlético's day to day operations. This led to a decline that ended in relegation and a two year spell in Segunda Division.

Around this period the outstanding young talents of Fernando Torres started coming through. Much money was spent on other signings before Torres departed in 2007 for Liverpool. The arrival of Quique Sánchez Flores as coach in 2009 saw an improvement to the average form shown, with Atletico going on to win the inaugural Europa League final (previously UEFA Cup) after beating Fulham in the Hamburg final.

My match ticket from my visit.

Atletico’s massive rivals are city neighbours Real Madrid. Real are seen as the club of the establishment whereas Atletico are looked upon as having a sense of rebellion. Ironically Atletico were originally the favoured team of the Franco regime, until their preferences moved to Real, probably when Atletico dropped their previous military links.

Real are not the most favourite team amongst other sides in Spain because of their perceived favouritism from the establishment. Atletico fans are thought to be the originators, and are the most frequent singers of the song "Hala Madrid, hala Madrid, el equipo del gobierno, la verguenza del país" meaning "Go Madrid, go Madrid, the government's team, the country's shame".

Atletico Madrid play at the 55,000 capacity Estadio Vicente Calderon which is named after a former club president. It was previously called Estadio Manzanares after the river that runs behind the Main Stand. Atletico are nicknamed Los Colchoneros or The Mattress Makers due to their first team stripes being the same colours as old-fashioned mattresses as well as Los Indios owing to the amount of South American signings in the 1970's.

Despite the stadium being only being built in 1966, there was talk of it being demolished in 2012 with the club moving to a new ground, Estadio La Peineta.

On the pitch Atletico continued to flourish under Diego Simeone, as they once again lifted the Europa League in 2012 as Athletic Bilbao were defeated in the Bucharest final. The undoubted star of the time being Radamel Falcao.

Atletico followed this up at the start of the 2012-13 season with a 4-1 hammering of Chelsea in the UEFA Super Cup, with Falcao bagging a hat trick. The run continued as Real Madrid were defeated 2-1 in the Copa Del Rey Final in May 2013.

Falcao was sold to Monaco at the end of the season for a fee of around €60M. This didn't stop the team progressing as Simeone continued to weave his magic. After qualifying from the group stage in the Champions League, AC Milan, FC Barcelona and then Chelsea were knocked out in fine style to set up an all Madrid final against Real in Lisbon.

Atletico led 1-0 until injury time when Real equalised and then went on to lift the trophy 4-1 after extra time. A massive consolation had already arrived a week earlier on the last day of the La Liga season as a 1-1 draw with FC Barcelona clinched their first title since 1996. The only downside came as more players left the club for huge fees.


Atletico Madrid will be playing in La Liga in season 2014-15.


My visit

Atletico Madrid 1 Racing Ferrol 2 (Sunday 8th October 2000) Segunda Division

In 2000 I went on a tour of Europe by railway. The day after the final game at the "old" Wembley, I took a flight to Madrid to start my adventure. I had a brief look around the city after finding accommodation in a very basic pension for the evening before venturing towards the stadium.

I was fortunate that Atletico were playing. It was international weekend but the club had been relegated to the Segunda Division (Division 2) the previous year so they went ahead with a game with an 8pm kick off on the Sunday night. After alighting at Piramides and walking for about ten minutes, I found a bar within sight of the ground and took in the evening sun. I got talking to an ex pat Everton fan which was useful as to guidance to buying a ticket. I ended up paying the equivalent of around £8 for a seat in the upper tier behind the goal. Atletico's opponents were Racing Ferrol from the north west of the country. They sprang a surprise and beat Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink and his team mates 2-1 to the delight of the small scattering of away fans.

The stadium was a great place to watch football, especially in nice weather. It was D shaped with one continuous huge unroofed double decker stand curving round three sides of the pitch, with a stand alone Main Stand towering over the pitch with the river running behind it. The seats offered a great view and are all in red and white stripes to match the teams shirts.

The facilities in common with many other continental grounds were basic on the concourses. I grabbed a beer and a bag of crisps. There were no programmes and fans seemed to use the newspaper as a guide to the teams. 

The fans were passionate and made their feelings well known depending on the state of the game. I'd heard that it is a rough place to visit on European nights as an away fan and I can well believe that. However, on my visit everything was fine and I'd jump at the chance of a return.