The story of the Mattress-makers

The league with the most free flowing football and an eye for goal is about to start. The duopoly was broken last year when a certain club from Madrid won La Liga and almost became the champions of Europe. Indranath Mukherjee goes back in time to focus on their illustrious history. Read on to know more with Goalden Times.

During the 2012–13 La Liga season, I had argued that Spanish football is more than the sum of the two giants—Barcelona and Real Madrid (here’s the quick link for people who missed it the first time around: Spanish Corner | Looking Beyond FC Barcelona And Real Madrid). Sure enough, we got a new league champion in Spain in 2013-14, with Club Atlético de Madrid winning the top honours.,With their passionate brand of football that almost gave them their first UEFA Champions League title until Sergio Ramos equalised in the third minute of the injury time in the final at Lisbon’s Estádio da Luz, Diego Simeone’s team was a revelation last season. A week before from somewhat similar situation at the Camp Nou, Diego Godín’s goal ensured La Liga for Atlético for the first time since 1996. Simeone, an ex-Atlético player (1994-1997 and 2003-2005) himself, took charge of the club in December 2011 when Gregorio Manzano was sacked after a poor show in La Liga. Atlético finished at number five in the league that season, but went on to win their second Europa League in three years. They started the following season by winning the 2012 UEFA Super Cup, thrashing previous season’s Champions League winner Chelsea 4-1. This was thanks to a first-half hat-trick by Radamel Falcao. They ultimately finished the season winning the Copa del Rey with an intense 2-1 win against city rival Real Madrid, ending a 14-year and 25-match winless streak in El Derbi Madrileño.

Much like Simeone, Atlético Madrid’s first series of triumphs came under another Argentine manager—Helenio Herrera. Under his able leadership, the team won consecutive league titles in 1950 and 1951. The club, in fact, had won its first consecutive titles when the league was resumed right after the Spanish Civil War in 1940, but its name was not Atlético Madrid then. The history of Atlético is actually one of the most complex and interesting in the annals of club football.

It all started when Ignacio Gortázar, Adolfo Artocha and Abdon of Alaiza—three Basques who were studying in Madrid— decided to start up some sort of a social club for the homesick Athletic Bilbao fans residing in the Spanish capital. As a result, a group of people met at café La Maison Doree in Alcala street on 26 April 1903, and another “Athletic” was established by the name of Athletic Club de Madrid. Their players wore the same blue and white shirt as Bilbao.

In the following year, some dissident members of Real Madrid joined the gang to provide further momentum to the club. On 22 January 1911, they played their first match in their now famous red and white striped shirts. These shirts were apparently made from cheap unused mattresses and soon earned the team the nickname of Los Colchoneros – Mattress-makers.

In 1913, Athletic de Madrid played and lost the final of Campeonato Regional de Madrid, the regional championship against Real Madrid—then known as Madrid Foot-Ball. If they had won, they would have qualified for the Copa del Rey, but the Spanish rules disallowed two connected clubs from participating in the same competition, and Athletic de Bilbao had already qualified. Next year, they cut all their ties with their Basque counterparts and became a fully independent football club.

Atlético’s first regional championship came in 1921 when they beat Real Unión de Irún in the final of Campeonato Regional de Madrid but lost 4-1 to Bilbao in the Copa del Rey final. Four years later, in 1925, they won the regional championship again and remained unbeaten in the tournament. However, they once again lost the Copa del Rey final to FC Barcelona.

Meanwhile, in 1923, Athletic moved to its own stadium—the Estadio Metropolitano de Madrid—a stadium with the capacity to hold 35,800 spectators. This would continue to be their home ground till 1966.

The Spanish Civil War had a mixed impact on the club. When the league resumed in 1939 after the war, they were not playing in the top division. However, interestingly enough, they were still chosen to replace Real Oviedo since the latter’s ground was totally destroyed in the war.  But 8 footballers of Athletic’s starting 11 had perished in the bloody war. So, the club’s board requested Colonel Francisco Salamanca to merge his crack airforce team Aviación Nacional de Zaragoza with them and renamed them Athletic Aviación de Madrid. This was changed a few months later, by Franco’s order, to Atlético Aviación. For a team that was to play in the lower division, Aviación won the league in 1939-40. As if they had a point to prove, they did it again in 1940-41. This startling success came under Barcelona’s legendary goalkeeper Ricardo Zamora. whose managerial stint got off to a flyer much like his footballing career did.

In 1947, the club removed the military association from its name and became Club Atlético de Madrid. In the same year, they beat Real Madrid 5-0 at home in La Liga. This still remains their biggest win against their city rivals. That year, Atlético finished third behind Barcelona and Valencia, while Real came close to relegation and finished at number 11 in the 14-club league. Atlético’s consecutive wins in 1950 and 1951 will be remembered in the history of football for Helenio Herrera’s 3-2-5 formation. Managers and coaches in those days were mostly peripheral figures and clubs were best known by its players.But the legendary Herrera rose beyond these, and was one of the first limelight-hogging coaches.

As soon as Herrera left Atlético to take charge of Malaga in 1952, the league became a tussle between László Kubala’s Barcelona and Alfredo di Stéfano’s Real Madrid.

Success in Europe kept eluding Atlético until 1962 when the club made it to the final of the European Cup Winners’ Cup. The final against Fiorentina at Hampden Park was hard fought and finished 1-1 after extra time. The replay, played four months later in Stuttgart, saw Atlético winning 3-0 to bag their first European title.Incidentally, it remains the only title to elude their more famous city rivals. They made it to the final in the next season as well but, sadly enough, got thrashed 5-1 by Tottenham Hotspur.

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Atlético of the early 1960s was a great side. But those were also the best days for Real Madrid. However, even then, Atlético managed to beat Real Madrid in back-to-back Copa del Rey finals in 1960 and 1961. In 1964, Atlético appointed Vicente Calderón as its new president. He immediately signed some new players, most important among them being Luis Aragonés. They claimed the Copa del Rey in 1964-65 with an impressive run to the final against Real Madrid, Valencia, Real Sociedad, and Zaragoza. They won the league the next season, finishing a point ahead of Real Madrid. However,  they had to sell the Estadio Metropolitano in 1966 to clear some of financial mess that the club was in. Next season, Luis Aragonés scored their first goal in the new stadium, Estadio Manzanares, which was later renovated and renamed the  Estadio Vicente Calderón in 1971.

Argentina’s Boca Juniors’ iconic footballer and coach Juan Carlos Lorenzo took over the managerial responsibility of Atlético in 1973 and led them to their first European cup final  against Bayern Munich in Brussels next year. Atlético were without the suspended Ruben Ayala, Ruben Díaz, and Quique in that final.All these players had been sent off in an ill-tempered game against Celtic in the semifinal in Glasgow, which Atlético still managed to keep goalless. They won their home game 2-0 to book their place in the final. Let’s not forget that Bayern, at that time, had footballers like Sepp Maier, Paul Breitner, Franz Beckenbauer, Gerd Müller, Uli Hoeneß in its starting line-up, but Atlético still took the lead with Aragonés’goal in the extra time. 30 seconds from the closing whistle, Bayern defender Georg Schwarzenbeck’s wonder strike from 25 yards beat the Atléti goalkeeper Miguel Reina and the game finished 1-1. The replay played just after 2 days on May 17^th 1974 at the same venue,  and Bayern walked away with the title with its 4-0 win(2 goals each from Hoeneß and Müller).

Interestingly enough, Bayern refused to travel to Argentina to play against a physically tough Independiente side in the Intercontinental Cup, now known as the Club World Championship. As a result, Atlético got the chance and made the most out of it by winning the home match 2-0 with goals by Javier Irureta and Rubén Ayala. It was the first of many successes of Luis Aragonés who had retired and was promptly appointed as the Atlético coach.

In 1975-76, Aragonés’ men won their fifth Copa del Rey, and, in the following season got the league for the eighth time, beating Johan Cruyff’s Barcelona in a thrilling title race. What followed was the dreariest period in the club’s history.

After winning the league title in 1976-77, Atlético had just won a sole Copa del Rey in 1984-85 before Jesús Gil y Gil, the club’s most controversial president till date, took over in 1987. Fans were getting impatient and Gil came into power by promising to sign the Portuguese left winger Paulo Futre, a crucial member of the European Cup winner with F.C. Porto. They won the Copa del Rey in the consecutive years of 1991 and 1992, but the club was going through a financial mess and Gil kept buying players and sacking managers. One of Gil’s biggest blunders was to shut down Atlético’s famous youth academy in 1992—a move which prompted a certain 15-year-old academy player Raúl Gonzalez to join the city rivals and achieve international fame.Finally, after 19 years, the league was won in 1995-96. Copa del Rey was won that year as well, making it a double success for coach Radomir Antic’s Atlético. The team now had players like José Luis Caminero, Diego Simeone, Milinko Pantić, and Francisco Miguel Narváez Machón aka Kiko. This success followed further signings of Christian Vieri, Juninho Paulista, and Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink in the following few seasons. These marquee but thoughtless signings, however, also pushed the club closer to bankruptcy.

While the club was in such an unstable state due to the shenanigans of Jesús Gil and his eponymous political party, GIL, ( ironically enough, IL stood for Independent Liberals)  some of the players were being investigated for undeclared incomes. Paulo Futre later admitted to receiving £2.5 million in backhander. To make things even worse, a member of the neo-Nazi group Bastion stabbed a Real Sociedad fan outside Vicente Calderón in 1998. The perpetrator was sentenced to 20 years’ jail in 2001.

Gil and his board members got suspended for various financial crimes, including embezzlement from his own club, in 1999.And Gil was finally arrested in 2000. The club’s performance on the pitch had also reached its nadir by then, with them getting relegated for Segunda in 1999-2000 after Hasselbaink failed to convert from the spot on the last day of the league against Real Oviedo. Claudio Ranieri, the manager, resigned. Once more, in stepped Aragonés, and got the club back in the top division after missing out the chance narrowly in the previous season. Gil’s ghost was still around Vicente Calderón as his son took charge of the club while he was busy clearing the multiple charges of financial malpractices brought against him. Fans, by that time, were well and truly sick of the corruption and had started chanting ‘Gil carbon, fuera del Calderón’(Gil, you bustard, get out of Calderon) during various games.

Finally, Gil resigned in May 2003 after sacking 36 managers (6 in one season) and leaving Atlético 80 million euros in debt a month after the official celebration of the club’s centenary. Although Real Madrid never considered Atlético to be a serious competitor, their ways of celebrating their centenaries provide certain interesting sociological perspectives. Real invited Plácido Domingo to sing in their centenary, while Rolling Stones rocked at Atlético’s. Real Madrid had a banquet whose invitees included the country’s president, members of royal family, and other VIPs, while Atlético cooked a giant paella and offered it to the crowd gathered outside the stadium for the game against Osasuna. Although they lost the game that day, the nature of the celebration suited a club that has never embraced any social pretensions.

Real Madrid’s indifference towards Atlético as a rival (which is mostly because Real wants to save it all for Barcelona) has always been treated as a snub by Atlético fans. These fans, along with  those of Sporting Gijón, are the most feared set of spectators in Spain. There is something unique and uninviting about Atlético fans. They prefer that you hate them. In fact, they thrive on it. Gil was a master at exploiting this ‘bad boys’ image to blame every lost game on politics and the referees’ association.

After coming back to the top division in Spain, we have seen inconsistent domestic performances from Atlético in spite of good footballers like Diego Forlán, Luis García, Simão, José Antonio Reyes, Sergio Agüero, and Radamel Falcao playing for them. They won the UEFA Europa League in 2009-10 and 2011-12, the second time under Diego Simeone, who seems poised to make Atlético a serious rival to both Real Madrid and Barcelona. Though whether they will be able to continue their last year’s performance is something that remains to be seen, it cannot be denied that they have done exceptionally well in the transfer market this season. They lost some of their key players, including their last season’s highest scorer Diego Costa to Chelsea. Their super goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois on loan from Chelsea has also gone back to his club. Full back Filipe Luís will play for the blues in London too. But they have signed enough players, including Mario Mandžukić, Antoine Griezmann, Miguel Ángel Moyà, Jan Oblak, Sílvio Manuel Pereira, and Jesús Gámez to back-fill. Simeone is clearly looking to create a solid squad that will not just be a one-season wonder.

Atlético Madrid will move out of Vicente Calderón and move to the renovated Estadio La Peineta in 2016. Fans are not excited about the shift but if the club continues to win trophies, they should hardly have anything to complain about. For now, only time will tell whether the mattress-makers manage to pose a serious threat to Real Madrid and their one-sided dominance of football in Madrid.

Europa League Final Preview

The second tier club honour in Europe is coming to Spain. Get the showdown of the all Spaniard Final encounter with Debojyoti Chakraborty

Athletic Club (ESP) vs. Club Atlético de Madrid (ESP) Arena Națională, Bucharest May 9, 2012 14: 45 EST 19:45 GMT 00:15 IST (May 10, 2012)

This year the Europa League has been dominated by the reigning European and World Champions, Spain. The finalists, Athletic Club and Club Atlético de Madrid, have dominated the competition this time round – along with another semi-finalist from Spain, Valencia – and it is no surprise that we are set for an all Spanish Cup Final this year. It will be a good time for the less fancied Spanish duo when their more illustrious compatriots failed in the Champions League during the same week. They came through two contrasting semi-final ties. The giant killing Athletic Club, which accounted for Manchester United earlier, had to dig deep to see off a stern Sporting Lisbon side en route to their second ever European Cup finals. On the other hand, 2010 Europa League winners, Club Atlético de Madrid cruised past Valencia for a ticket to the final on May 9, 2012 in Bucharest. Last time an all Spanish final took place was in 2007, at the finals of Europa League (then known as the UEFA Cup), when Sevilla edged past Espanyol on penalty shoot-out after a 2-2 deadlock. It will be a huge occasion for the Marcelo Bielsa managed Bilbao side. Over and above their nail-biting semi-final tie which saw them through by virtue of a last gasp winner, it will be an emotional moment for the club which last made a European final appearance way back in 1977 only to be beaten by Juventus. Elsewhere, Club Atlético de Madrid had taken a huge step towards the final by virtue of a 4-2 first leg win. They merely finished the formalities by winning the return leg also by a solitary goal. They would like to repeat the performance of two years back when they won the competition. The two teams have been locking horns even before the inception of Spanish championships (in 1929) as they met in the Copa del Rey finals in 1921 where the Madrid side was beaten 1-4. This season though, they have won one apiece in La Liga.  They are difficult to separate in the league standings also as they lie side by side in sixth and eighth positions with only two points separating them. One of the most striking features of the Basque club, Athletic Club or Athletic Bilbao, is that all of its players are either born or received their training in the Basque Country and its provinces, a culture it has upheld since its inception. Marcelo Bielsa has really done wonders since taking charge in the last year. Apart from reaching the finals of Europa League and fighting for a European spot in the league, Bilbao has set up a Copa del Rey final clash with Barcelona on May 25. Bielsa likes to start with a pressing 4-2-3-1 formation which is changed to 4-3-3 at times. Gorka Iraizoz starts in the goal with Fernando Amorebieta and World Cup winning midfielder Javi Martinez as centre-half pairing. The full-back positions are occupied by Andoni Iraola and Jon Aurtenetxe. The holding midfielder role is given to Ander Iturraspe who has formed a potent partnership with the tireless and versatile Oscar de Marcos, playing in a slightly advanced position and given the freedom to venture forward whenever the opportunity arises. Inspirational striker Fernando Llorente is the focal point of attack. With seven goals in 13 appearances, this competition has been a successful one for him and he would definitely like to finish it on a high. He is flanked by Iker Muniain and Markel Susaeta with playmaker Ander Herrera playing in the hole.

Club Atlético de Madrid is also helmed by an Argentine, Diego Simeone, and he favours a rather uncomplicated 4-5-1 formation. They have a 6’6” teenage Belgian shot-stopper in Thibaut Courtois, on loan from Chelsea, who has really impressed one and all. The defence is marshalled by Diego Godin and Joao Miranda. They have a versatile right-back in Juanfran who can also operate on the right side of midfield. Left-back is occupied by Filipe Luis. Mario Suarez and Gabriel Arenas like to anchor the midfield and complement each other in going forward. The right side of midfield has been made his own by Adrian Lopez through his marauding runs and goal-scoring knack. He is matched in the opposite flank by Arda Turan. Diego Ribas is the most advanced of this compact midfield and he supports the lone striker – the man with the golden touch, Radamel Falcao, a perfect #9. Besides netting twenty-three goals in the La Ligain 31 appearances in his debut season, Falcao has scored an amazing ten times in 14 appearances in this continental cup competition. One of his trademark weapons has been his incredible spot jump to add power in the air despite not being that tall. He is no stranger to this stage though, as he smashed a record 17 goals last time en route to winning the trophy for Porto.

With two dangerous strikers upfront from each side and to continue with the high scoring La Liga pattern, the final is expected to be a high-scoring affair. But stakes are high and it won’t be wrong to predict the coaches to be slightly worried about venturing forward at will. Nevertheless, this should be a good spectacle with a slightly better defence giving the Madrid side an edge.