Watching football in the house of El Cholo

IF you’re a football fan – and if you’re not, you’ll probably not be reading this – I wonder if you’ve ever asked yourself why the experience of watching a game of football so intoxicating, even if the team you support isn’t playing. Like so many opinions about football, there’s probably 101 answers to that question. With no right or wrong answers, it all depends on your opinion.

For me, watching La Liga games, I can get as much joy from seeing games between two midtable sides, as when taking in the latest episode of the series of El Clásico, when the two behemoths of the game collide. It’s all about passion, and how you can sink into the atmosphere of the game and let it wash over you so that, regardless of who is playing, you become part of the game, and so much of that is down to the stadium, its ambience and how it can wrap its arms around you emotionally as well as physically. Let me give you an example.

I’ve been to more than a few football stadiums in Spain, ranging from the cathedrallike awe of the Camp Nou to the local ground of CD Torrevieja a few hundred metres from where I live. Of that catalogue of stadia, there’s little doubt that the most impressive is the Camp Nou and, in the dozen or so games I’ve seen there, I’ve been privileged to feast my eyes on some of the greatest talents of recent years. Saviloa, Rivaldo, Luis Enrique, Ronaldinho, Xavi, Iniesta, Messi and Neymar have all plied their trade in front of me, and it’s been immensely enjoyable to watch. That said though, and I know this sounds strange, but I always felt that there was something missing.

Going to watch Barça was a bit like going to the theatre. You know how the play is going to end. You know the plot. You know the lines. And, you also know, that those donned in Blaugrana are going to deliver with virtuoso quality, but that’s just it. Where’s the wonder, the shock, the surprise, the awe of unexpected majesty and beauty? When everything is expected, nothing is there to lift you.

In contrast, a few years back, the wife and I paid a visit to Madrid, and decided that, rather than do the ‘ tourist’ thing, and take in a game at the Estadio Santiago Bernabéu, we’d pay our respects to the Vicente Calderón on the banks of the Manzanares. It was the final season that Atléti would play there, before moving to their shiny now home at the Wanda Metropolitano across the city.

It was late November, so with Atléti scarves in place, we headed down to the Metro towards Piramides station near the ground. Immediately we climbed back to street level, it seemed the decision had been vindicated. Streams of fans bedecked in Los Rojiblancos colours were forming a tide flowing towards the stadium. In Barcelona, with some exceptions of course, ‘ smart casual’ was the dress code, and the only people sporting Barça shirts were either the uninitiated, or tourists.

We dropped into line and followed along. A couple of hundred yards from the station, we noticed that around fifty or so fans had stopped outside of a bar for a prematch drink. When in Rome, and all that sort of thing, so we joined them. Inside, the bar was pretty empty, as most fans had gathered around the tables outside, or were standing around in groups. The beer was fairly nondescript, but the glasses – plastic ones – were the ‘ doublesized’ ones that meant you only needed to go to the bar once. A quick glance around suggested that this was the thing to do. “Dos cervezas por favor Señor” got the drinks in, and with a “Gracias” from me and a “De nada” from the barman, we went back outside.

Look, I don’t want to say that going to watch Barcelona is anything like a Catalan Vicar’s Tea Party, because it certainly isn’t, but walking along the Diagonal towards the stadium in Barcelona, the atmosphere is certainly more restrained. It was also noticeable how many fans were wearing Atléti shirts and sporting the club’s colours. After spending 20 minutes or so quaffing our drinks in ebullient company, we resumed our track towards the ground.

Arriving at the stadium, the first thing we noticed was the small holes at the rear of the seats. Every one of them had grass growing through them. I’m not sure whether that says much about the agricultural climate of Madrid, or about the way in which maintenance was perhaps being wound down in the stadium’s last rotation of a football season. The stadium comprised a sweeping ‘ U’ shaped bowl of seating, surrounding one side, and both ends of the pitch, with a squaredoff stand facing the other side. We were positioned in the second tier of seating in what was termed the ‘ Lateral’, the area forming the base of the ‘ U’ shape, just to the right of the halfway line, facing the covered ‘ posh’ seats of the ‘ Prefencia’ opposite.

Behind the goal to our left was the ‘ Fondo Sur’, where massed ranks of red and white decked Atleti fans chanted and encouraged their team with the sort of coordinated jumping up and down that was often the purview of fans supporting central European clubs; the ‘ Posnan’ adopted by Manchester City fans being an appropriated example. The initial chants varied between Atléti and Cholo the nickname of the allblack clad Simeone, pacing the touchline in front of his dugout.

To be honest, the game itself wasn’t great. The home team snaffled an early goal and then, very much in the way Simeone has his team play, they settled for that and played out time. The thing was however that, even though the entertainment wasn’t of the highest order, the experience was. Passion, desire, inexcusable and misdirected anger at the officials, all stitched together to form football’s inadvertent thrill, that makes the game so intoxicating.

I’ve yet to visit the Wanda, but it would have to go some to recapture the mystical aura of its predecessor. When the move was announced there many protests from fans appalled at the decision. The Asociación Señales de Humo ( Atletico Supporters Club) felt the move had much to do with money, very little of which would find its way into the club’s coffers. Their cause, however, was one that I had sympathy with. Yes, the new stadium was a long way away from where the club had been based, with the inherent travelling costs and access issues, but there was more to it than that. There was a spiritual attraction to the old stadium and that’s not something easily transferable. Watching football isn’t about gleaming new stadia, nor is it having grass grow through your seat. It’s about being part of the experience. Change too much and we’ll lose that most precious of experiences.

With the international break over and LaLiga reemerging next week, we’ll take a quick look at Spain’s performances and the weekend’s games. Catch you then. Hasta luego!