A look the Real Madrid-Atletico myth

TO understand Real Madrid and Atletico de Madrid, think Manchester United and Manchester City with political overtones.

It’s an accepted generalisation in Spain that Madrid supporters tend to belong to the political Right, the affluent and monarchists.

Those with long memories even remember an interview when Juan Carlos I, who abdicated in 2014, once joked to an interviewer that his son, then Prince of Asturias and now King Felipe VI, had “turned out badly” for supporting Atletico.

In contrast, the  Left, the working class and those with republican leanings have always rooted for Atletico de Madrid.  Or so popular wisdom holds.

Francisco Franco – as far Right as it’s possible to travel – was always said to favour Madrid, although he apparently had little interest in football as a game.

The old demarcations came to the surface recently after Jose Manuel Otero Lastres, a professor of Law at Alcala University (Madrid) and a member of the Real Madrid board, spoke to supporters’ club, Remontada Blanca.

The team incidentally, is best referred to as Madrid, despite the UK media’s fondness for Real, which  to Spanish ears means the San Sebastian team, Real Sociedad.

The interview also brought into play the third member of the eternal triangle, Barcelona, although it has usually been more Madrid’s eternal rival than Atletico’s.

“It has always been considered the Regime’s team,” Barcelona president Joan Laporta repeatedly grumbles regarding Real Madrid’s relationship with Franco.

Asked about the Catalan club’s accusations, Otero Lastres pointed out that Franco once received a gold, diamond-encrusted version of the Barcelona badge from the club.  “But never from Madrid,” Otero Lastres said. “If you knew history, Barcelona was always the Regime’s club.”

So too, the director said, was Atletico, a club originally formed in 1903 when it was known as Athletic Club with an additional “de Madrid” to differentiate it from the Bilbao club of the same name.

Having descended to the Second Division in the last season before the 1936-1939 Civil War, it merged with an existing team of footballers from the Nationalist band called Aviacion and played in the First Division. The name was changed to Atletico de Madrid in 1946.

Real Madrid won five League titles and two Cups between 1931 and the start of the Civil War in 1936 but after Franco’s victory the team had to wait until 1952 before they won another League, after which the victories came in thick and fast.

During the Franco years, the club won 14 Leagues and six Cups, compared with Barcelona’s eight Leagues and nine Cups, and Atletico’s seven leagues and four cups.  As Real Madrid’s international reputation began to grow, Franco was certainly not averse to basking in the club’s reflected glory at a time when the country was still emerging from the isolation it temporarily suffered at the end of the Second World War.  Rivals have since taken pleasure in dwelling on this perceived favouritism ever since.

Meanwhile, PSOE socialist Pedro Sanchez who hopes to win a November investiture vote supports Atletico de Madrid.

His rival Alberto Sanchez Feijoo, a Galician, supports regional teams Deportivo de La Coruña and Celta de Vigo as well as – who else? – Real Madrid.

There could be something in it, after all.