History of Real Madrid CF: the pride of a city

Los Merengues, los Galacticos, los Blancos, los Vikingos and Los Madridistas.

Five nicknames to refer to a single football club: Real Madrid CF.

This football team boasts a history of more than one hundred years. It was founded on 6th March 1902 and it was called “Madrid Club de Football”. On 29th June 1920, King Alponso XII conferred the royal title to the club and since then the club is called “Real Madrid”. The first colours of the team were white with sky-blue stripes and a red band.

On 31st October 1912 a young player called Santiago Bernabeu made his debut with the team. Thirty-one years later he was nominated president of the club and that same year the team won the Generalissimo Cup defeating FC Barcelona. During the 35 years of Santiago Bernabeu’s presidency, the team won everything there was to win.

In 1947 was inaugurated the new stadium of Real Madrid and it was called after his president’s name, in his honour.

Real Madrid couldn’t help but have its own museum. In fact, it is the second most visited museum of Madrid, after El Prado. It opened its door in 1997, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the opening of the stadium. It has two floors and it is wholly dedicated to Real Madrid and it is the coveted destination for thousands football maniacs, who take advantage of a city break in Madrid and visit it. Spanish League, Copa del Rey (Spanish Cup), Spanish Super Cup, League Cup, Champions League, UEFA Cup and Intercontinental Cup are displayed behind the windows and it must be noted that Real Madrid is one of the team that can boast the largest number of cups in the world.

In the museum, it stands out a section dedicated to the pictures of the champions that won the prizes over one hundred years and the pictures of the football matches when Real won the prizes. This way football lovers can travel through time and, for instance, rivisiting1960s when Real Madrid was reckoned as the best team of the world thanks to footballers such Alfredo di Stefano, Puskas, Ferenc and Francisco Gento. On the other hand, the protagonists of the last generation are Emilio Butragueño, the golden ball Luis Figo and Raul Gonzales Blanco who have a wide photographic section.

There are also the pictures of all presidents that contributed to bigger the team.

On 6th March 2002 the Spanish team celebrated its one hundred years and it was proclaimed the best football club of 20th century by FIFA.

Real Madrid is probably the most popular team in the world as it has been estimated that has about 228 millions of supporter throughout the world. The second team is Manchester United that has 116 millions of supporters. It is not easy to claim such a number of supporters, but undoubtedly the history of Real Madrid contributed to make itself be known.

It is worth to spend some words about the main rivals of Real Madrid. They are FC Barcelona and Atletico Madrid. The rivalry with Barcelona is especially due to political and cultural aspects. In addition, these two teams are the principal teams of Spain and this causes competition anyway. The rivalry is sharpened when a player is transferred from a team to the other. Two contested transferrals have been the one of Alfredo di Stefano, during the 1950s and lately, the one of Luis Figo, from Barcelona to Real Madrid in 2000.

The rivalry with Atletico Madrid is due to the fact that they share the same city, but also, their different position once reflected the social battle between the labour class (Atletico Madrid) and the bourgeois class (Real Madrid).