Champions

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 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.

For many fans, watching a match in Italy is a dream. For those of us who have been more than once, it remains a game of chance: Italians are unpredictable in their game and in their organization. Fourteen members of the Atlético de Madrid Fan Club from Germany decided to tempt fate and continue to make our fan club the most dynamic in this country, so we requested the tickets with the assurance that they would be granted to us, and we all marked February 20th on our calendars as “destination Milan.”

Football has those things: one falls in love with a team without even having visited the city of its origin. This happens to some members of our Peña. They are members of Atlético de Madrid without having visited their stadium, distant fans, at heart, who would like to see more live matches but cannot for various reasons.

When, on the occasion of the First Meeting of European Atlético Peñas, a delegation from Atleti visited us in Cologne, this situation became evident during the talk with the peñas, and the Club’s representative showed great generosity by inviting all members of our Peña who had not yet visited our stadium to the match against Lazio.

Second-to-last match of the Champions League group stage, and it was Feyenoord from Rotterdam’s turn. Back in August, when the draw was made and Feyenoord came up, I thought this would be a good trip. I had been to the Netherlands before, sure, but never to Rotterdam.

Said and done. The three of us, Javi, Edu, and me, were on our way, and as always, I had the longest journey. It’s the drawback of living in Paradise. The journey started on Friday after work, with a stop in Madrid to catch my Atleti in the league against Mallorca. Javi, who lives in Germany near the Dutch border, was driving, and Edu was flying from Barcelona to Amsterdam. I decided to fly to Germany and go by car with Javi.