Biography
Club Atlético de Madrid, commonly known as Atlético Madrid, or simply as Atlético or Atleti, is a Spanish professional football club based in Madrid, that plays in La Liga. The club play their home games at the Wanda Metropolitano, which has a capacity of 68,000.
In terms of the number of titles, Atlético Madrid are the third most successful club in Spanish football, behind Real Madrid and FC Barcelona. Atlético have won La Liga on 10 occasions, including a league and cup double in 1996; the Copa del Rey on 10 occasions; two Supercopas de España and one Copa Eva Duarte; in Europe, they won the European Cup Winners' Cup in 1962, were runners-up in 1963 and 1986, were Champions League runners-up in 1974, 2014 and 2016, won the Europa League in 2010 and in 2012, won the UEFA Super Cup in 2010 and 2012, as well as the 1974 Intercontinental Cup.
Atlético's home kit is red and white vertical striped shirts, with blue shorts, and blue and red socks. This combination has been used since 1911. Throughout their history the club has been known by a number of nicknames, including Los Colchoneros ("The Mattress Makers"), due to their first team stripes being the same colours as traditional mattresses. During the 1970s, they became known as Los Indios, which some attribute to the club's signing several South American players after the restrictions on signing foreign players were lifted. However, there are a number of alternative theories which claim they were named so because their stadium is "camped" on the river bank, or because Los Indios (The Indians) were the traditional enemy of Los Blancos (The Whites), which is the nickname of the club's city rivals, Real Madrid. Felipe VI, the king of Spain, has been the honorary president of the club since 2003.
The club co-owned the Indian Super League franchise in Kolkata, formerly named Atlético de Kolkata, which won the competition twice, but in 2017 Atlético decided to end its franchise partnership with the ISL club due to broken commitments.
The club was founded on 26 April 1903 as Athletic Club de Madrid by three Basque students living in Madrid. These founders saw the new club as a youth branch of their childhood team, Athletic Bilbao. In 1904, they were joined by dissident members of Real Madrid. They began playing in blue and white, the then colours of Athletic Bilbao, but by 1911, Athletic were playing in their current colours of red and white stripes. Some believe the change came about because red and white striped tops were the cheapest stripes to make, because the same combination was used to make bed mattresses, and the unused cloth was easily converted into football shirts. This contributed to the creation of the nickname, Los Colchoneros. However, another explanation is that both Athletic Bilbao and Athletic Madrid used to buy Blackburn Rovers' blue and white kits in England. In 1911, Juanito Elorduy, a former player and member of the board of Athletic Madrid, went to England to buy kits for both teams. When he failed to find Blackburn Rovers kits to purchase, he instead bought Southampton's red and white shirts. Athletic Madrid adopted the red and white shirt but opted to keep Blackburn Rovers' blue shorts, leading to them also being known as Los Rojiblancos.
Athletic's first ground, the Ronda de Vallecas, was in the eponymous working-class area on the south side of the city. In 1919, the Compañía Urbanizadora Metropolitana-the company that ran the underground communication system in Madrid-acquired some land, near the Ciudad Universitaria. In 1921, Athletic Madrid became independent of parent-club Athletic Bilbao and moved into a 35,800-seater stadium built by the company, the Estadio Metropolitano de Madrid. The Metropolitano was used until 1966, when they moved to the new Estadio Vicente Calderón. After the move, the Metropolitano was demolished and was replaced with university buildings and an office block belonging to the company Enusa.
During the 1920s, Athletic won the Campeonato del Centro three times and were Copa del Rey runners-up in 1921, where they faced parent club Athletic Bilbao, as they would again in 1926. Based on theses successes, they were invited to join the Primera División of the inaugural La Liga in 1928. During their debut La Liga season, the club were managed by Fred Pentland, but after two seasons in the Primera División they were relegated to Segunda División. They briefly returned to La Liga in 1934 but were relegated again in 1936 after Josep Samitier took over in mid-season from Pentland. Fortunately for Los Colchoneros, the Spanish Civil War gave the club a reprieve, as Real Oviedo was unable to play due to the destruction of their stadium during the bombings. Thus, both La Liga and Athletic's relegation were postponed, the latter by winning a playoff against Osasuna, champion of the Segunda División tournament.
