FROM MADRID TO HEAVEN: CONFETTI IN THE WIND AND A CHAMPIONS DREAM THAT LIVES ON

What a night it was! I still have goosebumps and my heart is racing. Being in a Champions League semi-final is that dream we keep dreaming and, above all, keep believing in with all our soul.

The trip from León was an absolute luxury. Traveling on the coach with the folks from the Nunca dejes de creer and Furia Leonesa fan clubs is a whole different story; you forget about the exhaustion of driving and, most importantly, the nightmare of finding a parking spot. They drop you right there, you gather with your people, and you just enjoy. Plus, we had a special expedition: Hooliana didn’t want to miss the date. I headed straight to the singing stand (grada de animación), but my dear Shiyau, her adoptive mother, took charge of the “secret operation” to get her into the stadium and pamper her so she’d “take the bait”… and boy, did she! Just in time to see Julián’s goal.

The atmosphere was out of this world. There was no official tifo, but the response to the Frente Atlético call-to-arms was total: the entire stadium roaring and that toilet paper flying through the air as the players came out. For a moment, I closed my eyes and felt like I was back in the old Vicente Calderón. It was a magical sight, the kind that reminds you why we are different. And even though the weather threatened a storm, in the end, it respected us so much that we finished the match in t-shirts, singing our hearts out with our friends from the fan club.

However, it wasn’t all celebration. What happened on Avenida de Arcentales leaves a bitter taste and a lot of indignation. The welcome for the team was, as always, epic—a sea of people devoted to their colors. But that devotion was tarnished by absolutely abusive and disproportionate policing. It is incomprehensible that, at an event of this magnitude, the response to the passion of an exemplary fanbase is hostility and overzealousness. These attitudes, more fitting for a state of emergency than a sporting event, only serve to unfairly punish those who keep this sport alive. It was a disastrous management of the situation that stained what should have been a pure football party.

In the end, the draw leaves us wanting more but with our pride intact. I barely had time for the “Brindis” afterwards because I arrived just in time and had to leave quickly, but I’m leaving with one certainty: if we play the second leg like we played that second half, there’s no stopping us.

We keep believing, we keep dreaming. Let’s go—London will be our home!

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