Spain relishes all-Madrid ECL final
Stunning semi-final victories for Atletico and Real this week have set up a historic Madrid derby in the final of the Champions League and Spaniards are understandably proud of the achievement.
Atletico Madrid will face neighbours Real in the Lisbon final on May 24 as a result of impressive away displays from both the Madrid teams in their semi-finals.
Real won 4-0 at holders Bayern Munich Tuesday to cruise through on an impressive 5-0 aggregate and Atletico emulated their feat by coming from behind to win 3-1 at Chelsea Wednesday.
"Glorious Atletico, A Historic Derby" was the headline in Madrid sports paper AS Thursday, whilst rival daily Marca opted for "Grandiose Atletico, A Historic Final". The all-Madrid final was headline news in every Spanish newspaper Thursday. El Pais said it was "wonderful news for Spanish football", while ABC commented that "this is the just reward for having two teams of such high quality". It will be the first all-Spanish Champions League final since 2000, when Real thrashed Valencia 3-0 in Paris.
It will be the second Madrid derby in the Champions competition. The neighbours met in the semi-finals in 1959, with holders Real winning a play-off 2-1 in Zaragoza after a 2-2 aggregate draw in the two games played in the capital.
The Champions League curriculum of the Madrid teams is very different. Real are the record winners with nine triumphs while Atletico have managed to reach the final only once: in 1974 when they crashed 4-0 in a replay to Bayern in Brussels, after conceding an agonising late 1-1 equaliser in the first match.
Real coach Carlo Ancelotti said late Wednesday: "Atletico deserve to be in the final because they played better than Chelsea. People in Madrid are pleased with the final being a derby.
"There is no favourite for the final. Atletico are in great form, it will be an uncertain final." Each club will receive 17,000 tickets for the final from UEFA, and will distribute them by a lottery among club members. El Mundo said Thursday that it was fortunate the venue was Lisbon rather than a more distant city.
It is estimated that around 25,000 fans of each team will make the trip to Lisbon, many of them without tickets. Both clubs are already planning massive big-screen parties at their stadia for fans who prefer to stay in Madrid.
However, despite Ancelotti's diplomatic worlds, there is a palpable sense that both teams would have preferred different opponents in the final.
Online polls taken Wednesday - before the Chelsea-Atletico showdown - by Marca and AS showed an overwhelming majority of Real fans preferred to meet Chelsea in the final.
Atletico beat Real at their own Estadio Bernabeu in last season's Spanish cup final, their first derby win since 1999, and have taken four points off the Whites in La Liga this season - though they did lose twice to Los Blancos in the cup.
Atletico are six points ahead of third-placed Real (who have a game in hand) and are poised to clinch their first league title since 1996.
But an online poll in AS Thursday showed that 62 per cent of readers consider Real to be the favourites for Lisbon.
Atletico president Enrique Cerezo said Wednesday, just before the win at Chelsea, that he would have preferred Bayern to Real in the final.
After the impressive win at Stamford Bridge, Cerezo said: "This is my happiest night as club president. But I hope to be even happier on May 24.
"We have not been in the final for 40 years, but now we deserve to be there...It is not easy to win here, but we were superior to them from the very first minute." Cerezo was full of praise for coach Diego Simeone, who has transformed Atletico into a mean, winning outfit in his astonishing two-and-a-half year reign.
