Trail of the Lion King

There’s a decent train service from Alicante to Madrid that only takes two hours and twenty minutes and so Jen and I decided to head into the capital for a couple of nights. We arrived mid-morning on the Sunday which should have been plenty of time for a 2pm kick-off at Atletico’s Civitas Metropolitan stadium, but I ballsed the metro up when making our way to the hotel and running out of time I had to take a taxi to the ground.

As you might expect it was busy outside of the seventy-thousand-seater stadium. In addition to the usual scarf and seeds stalls there must have been thirty or so proper food concessions around the outer perimeter of the stadium, selling just about any type of meal or drink you might want. They were all busy too with the queues lengthy enough for me to decide not to bother.

The stadium was extremely impressive, although despite its magnificence I suspect that a lot of the home fans would have preferred to still be at their old ground. It struck me as a Highbury v Emirates scenario.

My seat was behind the goal but in the corner. I’d selected one three rows towards the front of the second tier of four, so it was reasonably close to the action. I’d bought the ticket online for sixty euros but as the crowd was only fifty-five thousand strong for the visit of bottom of the table Almeria, I could have got one at the ticket office if I’d preferred.

Once inside, I bought myself a pulled pork bun. If I’d wanted to, I could have had a zero alcohol Tanqueray gin with it. I’m not a big fan of gin. I’ll drink the alcoholic version at a push, as I will with most alcohol bar the surgical stuff. I can’t see the benefit of a zero-alcohol version though in the way that I can with beer, although it’s the same for any ‘spirit’. I suppose at least with gin flavour you’d sip it slowly.

Atletico started well and after having a decent Griezmann finish belatedly chalked off by VAR, they still managed to find themselves two-up by mid-way through the first half. At that point I suspected a rout. Almeria hung in there though and pulled a goal back in the second half. By the end it was Atletico that was running down the clock and their fans were delighted when the full-time whistle was eventually blown.

After the game I decided just to walk back to the hotel. It seemed an easier option than trying to negotiate the Metro along with thousand of other fans and I didn’t want to shell out for another thirty euro taxi fare. It was about five miles back to our hotel on the south side of Retiro park and took me a little under two hours. I made it back just before dark, which was handy as Madrid must be the dog shit capital of the world. Without the benefit of daylight, I’d have trodden in enough to have ended up an inch taller.