Patetico Madrid
Obviously the first thing one mentions when talking about Madrid and football in the same sentence is Real Madrid. Conquerors of Europe, the club of the last century, it’s all a bit embarrassing really. There are some that prefer Rayo Vallecano, or Getafe from the suburbs, but at the heart of the city, the true Madrileños, the ones like my favorite idiotic arm of the law Torrente, the Atleti-loving cop from Santiago Segura‘s dark comedies, are the long suffering center of the Capital’s football loving fanatics, Los Colchoneros or the Mattress-makers of Atletico Madrid.
They are a massive club in Spain, one of the best supported clubs in the league, a great squad with some highly rated players like last year’s Pichichi and Golden Boot winner Diego Forlan, Diego Maradona’s nephew Kun Aguero, Simao, Maxi Rodriguez, and they’ve bought well overall, and often, since selling Fernando Torres to Liverpool. They made Champions League last year, one of the hottest teams down the stretch, and former goalkeeper Abel Resino earned a chance at managing the club despite very little experience guiding clubs in the top-flight
Still, you just have to hand it to them. They are and probably always will be one of the most schizophrenic clubs in Spain. They have a history of spectacular crashes after amazing finishes. Despite all predictions to the contrary at the beginning of the season, you see Atletico right now in a virtual dead-heat with Racing and newly promoted Tenerife, a point ahead of Valladolid, and a stone’s throw from Malaga at 19. Their one saving grace is that at least they aren’t Villareal who are lagging at bottom under Espanyol cast-off Ernesto Valverde. They have 6 points in 7 league games, winning only a home tie against Zaragoza, while splitting points in three other matches.
In Europe, their form is no better. They split the Panathanaikos matches, suffering through a 0-0 draw to Apoel Nicosia, and commenced the blood-letting against FC Porto and Chelsea FC, letting in 6 goals in the process, and finally setting the stage for the dreaded vote-of-confidence for poor Resino.
Just google who’s in for the Atleti job then. The few Italians in the mix are I believe longshots. Both Mazzari and Luciano Spalletti will have offers for clubs closer to home (Milan being one of them) and honestly, why would either of them subject themselves to these players and this environment when there’s enough of that working for Silvio Berlusconi at home? On the Spanish front then, while I’d love to have Luis Aragones back to ridicule, it’s a stretch even for him to return to the club where he played only to manage them for a 5th go-around.
The only one more amusing would be Berndt Schuster: my obvious choice. I would dearly love to have the irascible German back in the Spanish capital. He could proclaim Barcelona champions again, this time from the Vicente Calderon instead. He could hang his head a little for the press again, mumbling into the mic that he didn’t have answers for what his players were doing on the pitch, and this time he’d have lots of examples to show the audience at home, Atleti are just built that way I’m afraid. It would be spectacular, and then he could finish his tour of duty in Madrid, working for ex-housewife Teresa Rivero, President of Rayo Vallecano where his head might explode.
No, I really do feel for the rojiblancos, some like captain Antonio Lopez, who agonized over the 4-0 Chelsea drubbing last night. “It hurts, we had high hopes for this game and have been training well every day.” It is a pain shared by a friend of mine who writes an Atleti blog that has as its description: Atletico Madrid, the love that hurts. It’s a feeling that no matter how much you implore the team to win, whatever you do to make things different, they always fail you in the end. It’s sad really. A little.
