Santiago Bernabéu Tour

I try to travel for at least part of every World Cup. While the US is home to rabid soccer fans, it’s not our country’s main thing. Imagine the fanfare football gets in America – the Super Bowl in particular – and then magnify it worldwide. If you love soccer, it’s nice for that passion to be the default for an event that only happens once every four years. (Example – my plane to Madrid was named for former Spanish team national coach Vicente del Bosque and stadium tour ads were inserted in the seat pockets.) So while I was visiting Madrid to indulge in art, food, and soccer, I needed to make a pilgrimage to one of the greatest cathedrals of the sport, the home of the team I chose to follow.

*Note: From this point onward, I will be using the words “soccer” and “football” interchangeably, as they are the same thing. Deal with it.

I became a fan of Real Madrid after the 2010 World Cup. Spain had won, so my choice was between Barcelona and Real Madrid. (Many of my friends who started following international football after Italy’s 2006 World Cup win became fans of Milan or Inter – it’s a thing.) Real Madrid’s goalie Iker Casillas and defender Sergio Ramos had been two of my favorite players during Spain’s run to the World Cup final and Mesut Özil, the young breakout star from Germany, was also headed to Real Madrid that fall. But what really sealed the deal was that one of my long-time favorite players – Kaká – played for Real Madrid. I was particularly curious to see him play with Ronaldo, who I had no real opinion on at the time, aside from acknowledging that he was probably one of the world’s best footballers. To round out the package, the ever-entertaining José Mourinho was joining the team as a coach.

This crazy bromance.


And these crazy abs, lbr.

While I decided to follow the team mostly based on players I liked, soccer – like anything else in Spain – is inextricably political. The club began in the early 1900s, founded by a Madrileño and two Catalans. In 1905, Madrid FC won its first title. They became one of the founding clubs when the Royal Spanish Football Federation was created in 1909. In 1920, the club was granted the title Real (Royal). (Many Spanish clubs hold this title – Zaragoza, Betis, Sociedad, etc.) In 1931, under the Second Spanish Republic, all Real titles disappeared alongside the monarchy. Following the Spanish Civil War, things get dicey...

In 1943, Real Madrid beat Barcelona 11-1 in the Copa del Generalisimo, as the Copa del Rey was renamed under Franco. It’s widely accepted that the Barcelona team was threatened by police and state security at half time. Real Madrid is still thought of as being Franco’s team – in truth, Franco originally favored rival Atletico Madrid, a team that had ties to the air force, but he ended up supporting the Spanish team that won the most trophies and international acclaim... and for a good part of his dictatorship, that team was Real Madrid.

Franco and his government bent the rules for each of the major teams when it benefitted their cause – for example, quickly nationalizing Ladislao Kubala so that he could play for Barcelona, and more importantly, the Spanish national team. However, there’s no denying that Real Madrid benefitted from Franco’s attention. The roles set under his dictatorship still influence perception of both Madrid and Barcelona to this day.

Santiago Bernabéu de Yeste became president of Real Madrid in 1945. Under his guidance, the team rebuilt their stadium and training facilities that were damaged during the Civil War. The youth academy, or Cantera, was started in 1950. In 1953, Bernabéu began a policy of signing the world’s best players, starting with Alfredo Di Stéfano. The signing of this legendary player is sometimes put down to Franco as well, when in reality, two clubs in Argentina owned his rights, Madrid and Barcelona each negotiated with one club only, and Barcelona wasn’t willing to agree to a compromise in which Di Stéfano would play for each team for one year. It was during this time that the European Cup was established (eventually becoming the Champions League). Real Madrid won the European Cup five times in a row between 1956 and 1960, an unprecedented feat.

Hungarian Ferenc Puskás defected to Spain in the late 50s and joined Real Madrid, becoming one of the most celebrated goal scorers in the history of Spanish football over the next few seasons. In the mid-60s, Madrid dominated Europe with an all-Spanish team. After a minor slump in the late 70s, homegrown players made the team a force worth reckoning with again.

In 2000, Florentino Pérez was elected president and began the Galácticos era by signing a global star every summer, like Zidane, (Brazilian) Ronaldo, and David Beckham. Pérez fired winning coach Vicente del Bosque (who would go on to lead Spain to their first World Cup trophy seven years later) in 2003, resigned after ensuing drama in 2006, was reelected in 2009, and signed Kaká and (Portuguese) Ronaldo for record sums.

While Real Madrid are the Yankees of soccer, their fans considered glory-chasers accordingly, my first Clásico (a Madrid-Barcelona match) was la manita, a painful 5-0 loss. The 2010-2011 season saw an unprecedented number of Clásicos, including four scheduled within the space of 18 days that spring. It was ridiculous. While Barcelona won the Spanish League (La Liga) and the Champions League, Real Madrid ended up winning the Copa del Rey... which Sergio Ramos promptly dropped under a bus.

The following year, Madrid won La Liga and Mourinho began his slow implosion, which ended with his resignation at the end of the following season. I watched religiously during those first two years. I joined an online group for Real Madrid fans and watched games with those girls and the official NYC Peña. I got to go to two Real Madrid exposition games during that time – one in Philly and one at Yankee Stadium with the Peña.

Following Mourinho’s departure, Carlo Ancelotti came on as coach and led the team to La Décima, their much-awaited 10th Champions League trophy. I purchased the bright pink 2013-2014 jersey with Sergio Ramos’s name on it, in honor of him scoring the goal that put us into overtime to win La Décima. (While watching the game, I knew we would get to overtime and promised to buy the shirt of the person who would score.)

 

Over the next season, fractures that had begun during Mourinho’s tenure led Xabi Alonso and Iker Casillas to both leave the team. Rafa Benítez (lol) took over as manager, then Zidane. As all this was happening, my life had been completely uprooted. I relocated, found a full time job, and rarely had time to watch a game.

I think I’ll always have a preference for Real Madrid, but the group of players when I started watching will always be closer to my heart than the team crest. I never got a chance to see my team play in Madrid, but now, at least I can say I’ve been to the stadium. The tour of Santiago Bernabéu is self-guided, so after taking a score of escalators to the breathtaking view at the top of the stadium, at first it’s not 100% apparent where you go next.

 

You follow the crowd and make your way down through the trophy rooms (which are cheese-tastically elaborate, perfectly fitting Madrid’s brand). You see the field from two other vantage points – one from about half way up (where you can also purchase insanely overpriced drinks and snacks), and one from the VIP seats. Finally, you visit the locker rooms and go through the tunnel to the players’ benches. Here, you get to walk field-level – but not on the pitch, of course. There's a Real Madrid bus experience (lol) and store, where I bought a lanyard and a mug.

Earlier in this post, I said the combination of players were one of the most important factors in me choosing to follow this club. The other is this – Barcelona is ‘mes que un club’, a flag-bearer for Catalan identity. This is enormously powerful, especially as an underdog story, but it can also be exclusory. At Madrid, if you’re the best at what you do, you belong, no matter where you come from.

Here is my favorite Madrid goal – Ramos gets the ball, passes to Özil. Özil finds Ronaldo who taps the ball to Kaká, who taps it right back and runs to the outside. Ronaldo passes to Özil, who is making an incredible run down the center. He finds Benzema, who crosses the goal – and Ronaldo sends it in, with Kaká on the wing as back-up. I love counter-attacking soccer, but I also love that this goal was created by a Spaniard, a German, a Portuguese, a Brazilian, and a Frenchman. And while the players I’ve loved may move on, or prove themselves to be awful human beings, that ethos – that moment in which the best from everywhere work together to make something beautiful – is my favorite thing about Real Madrid.