There are blogs, vlogs, and other nonsense meant to replace the travel chronicles of those who truly travel. Because no one will ever understand what it means to follow Atlético Madrid if they prefer to try the local cuisine instead of mingling with the fans, take a car or public transport instead of joining the fan march and singing at the top of their lungs, and when they don’t fully immerse themselves in the red-and-white passion with everything it entails.
Paris Saint-Germain. Parc des Princes. Paris. Champions League. Atlético de Madrid. Who could resist all that appeal? So we ordered our tickets through the peña and headed to Paris.
Thanks to the friendship connecting us with other peñas, we managed to organize a comfortable and easy trip: some members of the Peña Atlética of Germany joined the trip organized by Peña Atlético de Madrid Gent, and we all traveled together on the same bus along with our brothers from Panadero Díaz in Brussels. We’re not used to such comfort, and sharing the trip with other red-and-white fans, along with some beers and sandwiches, turned out to be an absolute pleasure. For the first time, we were joined by Juliana, our spider mascot named in honor of Julián Álvarez, who made it through the journey without a scratch. Other members of our peña traveled by train and even by plane.
When the League ends, we all have the same thought: What do I do now without football? Almost two months without seeing the ball roll feels eternal, but there are summers (like this one) where an international tournament satisfies our craving.
This year, the Eurocup was held in Germany, and in our supporters’ club, we have followers of various national teams. For once, we swapped our red and white jerseys for those of the teams we support and got ready to enjoy the tournament.
When the Champions League draw came out and it was announced that Atlético de Madrid would play against Borussia Dortmund in the quarterfinals, we, as the Peña Atlética de Alemania, jumped for joy. Finally, Atleti was coming to Germany Since we became an official peña, we hadn’t had the luck of hosting our team here, and we took it as a gift and an unparalleled opportunity to show how great our peña is.
Today, March 8th, International Women’s Day, we celebrate, among other things, that women can enjoy football with total normality. Not many years ago this was considered odd, that a woman liked football was something “unfeminine”, for “machos”.
We have come a long way, and there is still a long way to go. We as fans notice it in many aspects, for example when we go to a stadium and among the security guards at the entrance controls, eight are men and only three are women. And this is just one example.
