Football in Madrid

Football is very important in Spain, and in Madrid, specially, fans are very lucky as they have three football teams. The most famous one is Real Madrid, whose stadium, Santiago Bernabeu, attracts every year thousands of visitors.

Santiago Bernabeu Stadium is in the north of the city on Paseo de la Castellana. It is accessible by Metro, the station of the same name is on the line 10 of the network, which is linked to line 1, the main line going through Sol, at Tribunal and Plaza Castilla.

Santiago Bernabeu was inaugurated in 1947 and has hosted the European Cup Final  in three occasions. The Real Madrid offers a tour of the stadium, visitors are able to walk inside and walk around the facilities. During the tour visitors will go up in one of the 8 lifts that offers a panoramic view of the stadium, they will be able to visit the changing rooms and the press room as well. The shop sells a great variety of Real Madrid memorabilia that you can take back home to impress your family and friends.

Real Madrid is a great team, however, it is not the only team in Madrid. The second team is el Atlético de Madrid. Its home stadium has been called Vicente Calderón since 1971, it is next to the manzanares river and to Piramides Station on line 5.  One of the nicknames of the team is “mattress makers” because of the stripy shirts.

There is another smaller team in Madrid, it’s not very well known abroad although it did manage to get to the top division of the Spanish league in the 90s, if only for one year. Currently it plays in second division, their home stadium is Teresa Rivero, a smallish stadium in Vallecas in the south of Madrid. The team, el Rayo Vallecano (Vallecan Ray) , or simply el Rayo is supported mainly by people in that area. It’s on the same line as Sol, line 1. The Metro station Portazgo is just in front of the stadium. The area the stadium is in, is higher that the centre of Madrid, and 5 minutes on foot from the Teresa Rivero, there is a long park with green hills from which the whole of Madrid can be seen. That is a nice photo opportunity for tourists, and not far from Sol.

Categories: General