Into the Calderón reflects: Atlético’s journey back to the Copa final

Thirteen years is a long time to wait. Some of you know my personal journey with Atlético de Madrid is an unusual one. I have no familial ties to Spain, and I didn’t watch much football as a kid. But shortly after Christmas 2012, I happened upon Atlético — sitting second in the league table — as I sifted the digital pages of ESPNFC, and I had absolutely no inkling as to the journey that began when I tapped “follow” on the club’s Twitter profile. On May 17, 2013, I arrived home from a volunteer shift at a hospital in my hometown of Phoenix, Arizona and flipped on ESPN just in time to see Diego Costa sweep home the equalizing goal at the Santiago Bernabéu. What followed was my first true experience suffering through an Atlético match: Real Madrid dominated the rest of normal time, Juanfran made a clearance off the line from Mesut Özil and Atleti dragged it to extra time, setting up the 98th-minute “*Mirandazo*” that clinched my fandom for life. The underdogs had done it. They had won their 10th Copa del Rey.

Oliver Cores, Writer

I’m sat writing this while looking out from an apartment in the Docklands suburb of Melbourne, Australia, drawing similarities between my geographical disparity from 2013 to present, and Atleti’s sporting disparity during the same timeframe. There aren’t many places further away from my European upbringing than down under, and Atlético Madrid, as a club, have advanced in comparable distances from where they were 13 years ago. Growing up in the UK in an Atlético-supporting, half-Spanish household made for an interesting viewing experience when it came to the big matches. Spanish football was in a very strong position to be marketed abroad, with the Lionel Messi v Cristiano Ronaldo narrative leading the way for outlets such as Sky Sports to pick up the rights to LALIGA and select Copa del Rey games. However, due to my father’s refusal to fork out for anything other than free-to-air TV, these sorts of matches were usually watched on some grainy, illegally-streamed website, on a laptop that sounded like something whirring up its engines on the tarmac at JFK Airport. The device would be on the dining room table or, when it worked, connected to the TV with the old VGA cables, and whoever was interested would join me sat in front of it. The commentary would rarely be in English, and even when it was in Spanish, it would have a thick Argentine or Mexican accent that a kid who was only ever used to his abuela’s castellano would have a tough time to wrap his head around. I don’t remember our exact setup for the 2013 final, but it was a 20:30 GMT Friday night kick-off after tennis practice and most likely a chippy tea. Our streaming situation meant we were denied hearing the famous goal celebration “commentary” of Paulo Futre on Spanish national broadcaster RTVE (a company who have yet to ask him back on), but rest assured I have re-watched the phenomenal clip several hundreds of times since, and will leave it with you below. An Atleti win meant the usual post-match phone calls to Madrid were duly made, singing the hymn down the landline to the grandparents whilst listening attentively to my abuela’s lessons of why winning as an Atleti fan means so much more than as a *Madridista*. A number of cousins would be off that night to the fountain of Neptune, the congregation point in the center of Madrid where Atleti fans go to celebrate trophy wins. The next five years would follow a similar pattern, except the winning feeling would be rudely interspersed with heartbreaking moments of desolation that turned the jubilant phone calls overseas into those solemn. Being at a distance from the only ones I knew who shared this same red-and-white feeling meant missing out on moments that would have helped to get over some of the hardest of losses. The day after the 2016 Champions League final loss in Milan, my abuela organised for all of my direct cousins to go round for a Sunday lunch to prepare them for heading back to their Real Madrid-dominated school classes on Monday morning. Of course, they all went wearing their Atleti shirts with a renewed sense of pride. Moving to Spain at 18 years old in the back end of 2018 was, in theory, my way of getting closer to the action, and while my attendance at the Estadio Metropolitano steadily increased over the six years I spent there, my luck of seeing my team win anything drastically decreased. The one season where we did manage a LALIGA title was of course during the COVID-19 pandemic, which I watched on my phone at a socially-distanced BBQ. And now, at 26 years old and further away from it than I have ever been, Atleti once again have the chance to bring me joy to a land far away, one that I will feel just as deeply on my couch at 5am in Melbourne as I would in the stands at La Cartuja or surrounded by *colchonero* family in Madrid. I will be back in Europe in time for the Champions League final, though…

Sam Leveridge, Writer

It started, as many things do in football, with someone else’s game. May 2013. Copa del Rey final. Real Madrid vs Atlético. I watched it as a Barcelona fan. Not a secret admirer, not a sympathiser, but more of an anti-Madridista. I’d become a full-on, Camp-Nou-attending, Messi-worshipping Barça man. When Atlético won it, I appreciated it the way you appreciate a nice sunset on someone else’s holiday when they post it on Instagram. Good for them. Moving on. Except something lingered.

Ryan McCain, Writer

I was honestly in disbelief when I saw it had been 13 years since Atleti’s last Copa del Rey final. So long ago that I didn’t even follow international football at all, let alone Atlético de Madrid. It’s funny thinking about life without Atleti, given how much the club matters to me now. I went from casually monitoring a club to writing for Into the Calderón, which still feels surreal.