Author’s note: I was undecided about whether or not to post this one, as it is definitely for a very specific crowd and probably not of interest to the average reader. But then I remembered – I don’t really HAVE readers, and besides, this is my fucking blog. So suck it, imaginary haters.
I have had quite a journey with Real Madrid. I started watching soccer during the 2006 World Cup, when I was pregnant and essentially bedridden with my first kiddo. My brother and sister came to visit me in LA for the summer, and we devoured every game, singing the stupid commercial jingles that aired on repeat all day. (I love Tito’s tacos – you love Tito’s too!)
After being sucked in by the World Cup, I vowed to watch more soccer (forgive me – I’m American) in the coming season, so I signed up for the DirecTV sports package and set my DVR to record every Premier League, La Liga, and Serie A game available. I was pretty good about watching the big games every week in the beginning, but this got kicked into high gear after my daughter was born in October. She was an insanely fussy baby, the kind other people call “colicky” and I call “assholes.” She barely slept at night, and she only napped in the arms of myself or her dad. I was a grad student with only one class left at the time, and he was a high school teacher, so I was home with her 90% of the time. Thus, multiple hours a day would pass with me unable to move while she slept in my arms.
Even that was a godsend, though, as anything that resulted in her not screaming was welcome. So in order to make the most of it, I cued up the recorded vacuum noise on the computer and made my naptime preparations: cell phone, remote control, and bottle of water at the ready and within arms reach of the rocking chair. I would then proceed to watch match after match of Europe’s top leagues, and inevitably I fell in love.
When the season started, I had it in my head that I was going to be a Barcelona fan. I can’t tell you exactly why, other than the fact that I had already figured out that Ronaldinho was an incredible player and Barcelona had just won the Champions League so they must be a good team to watch. My ex was also on board with this pro-Barca agenda, so we embarked on our journey futbolistico with the Catalans squarely within our sights.
This worked out okay for a while, as they clearly had a very talented team, but after watching the top teams play, week in and week out, it became harder to root for them over Madrid because, well, there just seemed to be little heart there. I’m not saying that as the Madridista I currently am; this was genuinely how I perceived it at the time, with no malice intended. Ronaldinho was brilliant but seemed largely uninterested. I always loved Xavi and Puyol, but there weren’t many others who really captured my interest. Granted, Messi was injured for much of my early time watching the team so I didn’t have a chance to latch onto him. But whatever the case, when the rivals squared off against each other, I found myself pulling for Real Madrid despite my contradicting intentions.
As anyone familiar with that particular season knows, 2006-07 was not a good time to be on the fence regarding Barcelona, because it ended in dramatic fashion and not in favor of the Blaugrana. I was also vaguely pulling for Sevilla at that time, because Dani Alves was electric and I liked the idea of one of the smaller teams beating the Goliaths of Madrid and Barcelona. It all came down to the second to last game of the season. Madrid and Barcelona were tied on points but Madrid held the tie-breaker based on their head-to-head record. As goals poured in across both games, played simultaneously, the top spot changed hands multiple times until Van Nistelrooy equalized for Madrid in the 87th minute and Raul Tamudo netted the Tamudazo in the 89th to rob Barcelona of any points. This left Real Madrid as league leaders, which continued after the final week’s games and resulted in the title for Los Blancos.
I still remember watching GolTV’s coverage of the final games, as they would display a three-way split screen at times to show the progress of the three teams who were still in contention, and I also remember the elation of watching Madrid lock up the title in the last moments. As an introduction to European soccer in general and La Liga in particular, I couldn’t have picked a better moment to step in. Much to the dismay of my ex-husband, I celebrated the end result and the victory for Madrid, and this carried forward into subsequent seasons when I abandoned my sincere efforts to be a Barcelona fan and instead stuck with the Merengues, in whose corner I remain to this day.
It’s been an eventful twelve years since then, and I have done everything in my power to watch every Real Madrid game during that time. Comcast tried on multiple occasions to separate me from my team, but I found a way around every time. The first time it happened, I would watch the matches on shitty streams after my daughter had gone to bed (which she now did outside of my arms) and blogged about the results. When Comcast again stopped broadcasting the network that carried La Liga games, I tried and failed to get my apartment to approve a satellite dish for me. As a result, I moved back in with my dad and got the entire household switched over to DirecTV so that I could keep watching Madrid play weekly. I have since changed cable providers twice more and subscribed to Sling TV in order to stay up to date with the goings-on in Madrid.
And as strange as it sounds, this week’s 1-0 win over Espanyol left me about as positive about the team as I have been in a while. Yes, our results earlier this season have been more impressive in the manner of their victories, especially the midweek rout of Roma at the Bernabeu which was damn near flawless. But today’s was a hard-earned victory that simply would not have been possible in years past. It wasn’t an easy game by any stretch, but the team was able to scrape out a winning result anyway, defending well and holding onto the one goal margin even when it looked like an equalizer may have been coming for Espanyol. This is exactly the kind of game which we repeatedly blew the past few seasons when Barcelona racked up championship after championship (with a brief shout for Atletico in there too). Today’s game, then, was especially notable for the team’s ability to grind out a victory in a context that often proved too difficult in seasons past.
In the wake of the departures of Ronaldo and Zidane, with whom the team accomplished the almost unthinkable feat of winning the Champions League three straight times, I believe I was in good company in being nervous about the direction the squad would take this season. Before the season started, I told my brother – a devout Barca fan – that a third place finish and trip to the Champions League quarterfinals would be an acceptable outcome for me. This still may happen, but at this early stage I think I’m justified in predicting greater things for this team than I had originally imagined. Lopetegui has gotten Madrid out of the starting blocks as strongly as anyone I’ve seen in that role since Carlo Ancelotti, and he has them playing a beautiful style of soccer and with a team mentality I haven’t seen from Los Blancos in years. No disrespect to Zidane – what he accomplished with Madrid will undoubtedly go down in history as legendary – but the team somehow looks even better without its record-setting coach and player, which is simply astounding to me. I’m sure the story of the Tamudazo securing the league title for Real Madrid is one that is familiar to many, but for me it has extra meaning. Coming as it did during my inaugural season with La Liga, as well as my inaugural season as a parent of a rather challenging child, it cemented in me a love for Spanish football and Real Madrid that has sustained me since. When life has been hard, sports and music have been the constants that helped me through it. The Dodgers’ nifty fifty last year eased a rough summer, just like the Lakers’ 2009-10 season and title nursed me through the end of a rocky marriage. In a similar way, the Merengues have been my ever-present companions as I bounced from house to house and found my new place in the world. Even when they lose in frustrating fashion, the ride has always been worth it. I’m not sure what else I can say besides ¡Hala Madrid! and thanks for the memories.
P.S. Congrats to Luka Modric on receiving FIFA’s The Best award for 2018. I’ve been a fan of his since his Tottenham days, and I was incredibly excited when he joined Real Madrid in 2012. I still remember how hard of a time the fans gave him in the beginning, as well as how hard he worked to turn around that perception. It’s great to see his effort rewarded on the biggest stages, where he has definitely shined this year.
