You have no idea how much it hurt me not to be there last week for the club’s 120th anniversary. It was absolutely impossible for me to attend. Although, since then Portugal I didn’t miss a single minute of that match against Mallorca. I’m still speechless with the emotional tribute at the end of the game. I also liked the video that the club launched, featuring the Basque students who founded this wonderful club. As always ten for creativity.
A supporter of the club recently asked me: “How do you explain to a child that it is better to be from Atleti than from another team?” This is something I have been asked many times, especially in Portugal. I wasn’t born an Atleti player, it’s a passion that I started to feel as an adult with all my heart, until it became part of my identity. The answer is very clear to me. I’ll start by showing them the legendary ad for the kid asking “Dad, why are we from Atleti?”. Then he will tell them: “We are from Atleti for this”, accompanied by videos of the ultimate joy, happiness and craziness of our fans at Neptune celebrations after winning titles. In particular, the 1992 and 2013 Copa del Rey finals that we won at our eternal home rival, the Santiago Bernabeu.
However, these moments of intense happiness will not be enough. To show that mattress fans are the best in the world, not only when we win, but when we lose too, they have to see something really different: the moments after the defeat in the Copa del Rey final against Sevilla in 2010, where our fans showed all their love and pride for at Atlético de Madrid. We lost that day, but after the final whistle the mattress fans were heard infinitely more than the Sevilla fans. To the point some rojiblancos players cried. That attitude is pure Atlético de Madrid. If that moment left some meringue friends in awe, it won’t leave any soccer kid indifferent either.
Towards the end of the season, we added two more great victories against Mallorca and Valladolid (by the way, I’m sure I’m not the only one who smiles teasingly every time I see José Zorrilla!). We are a couple of points behind the eternal rivals. After endless criticism from a certain sector of the press, which predicted that we would not even qualify for the Conference, we are a couple of points behind the arch-rivals, with the Champions League places secure for a long time. The second place is one of the few we have left to solve from this 2022-23, where I had the great honor to be the image of the membership card. Who would have told me, a kid from a small town near Lisbon, that I would end up contributing to the wonderful story of a wonderful club on the other side of the border.
Why did I understand these Atleti values so well? Because since I was a kid I always had better company than playing football: annoying. That’s why I’m still so happy on twitter. My most sincere congratulations to the whole mattress family for this 120 years of another way of understanding life. Many congratulations!
Source: La Verdad
I am Shawn Partain, a journalist and content creator working for the Today Times Live. I specialize in sports journalism, writing articles that cover major sporting events and news stories. With a passion for storytelling and an eye for detail, I strive to be accurate and insightful in my work.
