Like many a fan of the beautiful game, I watched the Copa del Rey game last night, that as fate would have it, happened to be the Madrid derby. All wide-eyed & fancy free, a Madrid derby stirs the loins of just about any fan and as a neutral I was looking forward to a competitive feast of thrills, spills & (hopefully) GOALS, GOALS, GOALS!
Real Madrid all but squared the circle in booking themselves a spot in the final, convincingly & all too easily (from a neutral point of view) smashing their out-of-sorts city rivals Atletico 3-0 at the Bernabéu.
I dislike dwelling on the negative side of the street, but (& maybe melancholy got the better of me last night), I was left pretty crestfallen if truth be told.
Naturally there was an air of aggression on both sides right from the get-go. That’s fine, it was a competitive game, with a place in a cup final at stake & a local derby. But with the customary niggling challenges, amateur-dramatics (on BOTH sides), you just felt a sub-plot where something a whole lot more sinister was festering. An undercurrent of antipathy, which came to the surface as soon as the whistle was blown to start the game, was every bit as apparent in the stands, even more so than those charged with doing battle on the grass.
Diego Costa, as is his want, gave the Madrid defenders some customary verbal GBH. This got a customary reaction, with Real Madrid hatchet-merchant Pepe, not wanting to disappoint in his role as quintessential pantomime villain, bestowing Costa with the contents of one of his nostrils. Pepe became a photographers wet-dream when he pushed one nostril closed with a spare finger, allowing him to then force a burst of air & subsequent mucus over his opponent.
As a final act of indignity, Costa, who lest we forget is no Saint himself, got himself booked, meaning he’ll miss the return leg at the Vicente Calderón Stadium. After tussles with his nemesis Pepe, Álvaro Arbeloa & Ángel di María got in on the act and the frustrated Costa got his name predictably taken into the referees book.
But perhaps the most disgusting and SHAMEFULLY non too surprising skid-mark on the evening came where large sections of Atletico fans were very audibly heard aiming racist chants towards Real Madrid defender Marcelo, who was pitch-side and not involved in the game at the time. The customary ‘monkey chants’ were out in force, AGAIN!
Sadly, this is nothing new! It’s hardly an ‘isolated incident’, ever more ‘common-place’ (in Spain) and most frustratingly, you’ve a sense that this will either be glossed over as a bit of hi-jinx where folk got ‘a bit carried away’. or, at best, a slapped wrist, wag of an authoritative finger & a fine more worthy of failure to pay a backlog of parking-tickets will be seen as sufficient punishment. The root of the problem being the painful apathy from the governing body in Spain, who seem to view these ugly incidents as a ‘part of life’ and who, when they actually do take action, seem to do so reluctantly. The posturing of ‘this is wrong’ is that of a badly-cast actor, whose heart is not in the character or the job at hand!
As ever, football is emotive, it always has been and it always MUST be, but not to the extent where alleged ‘fans’ have carte-blanche to plumb the depths of decency. Even more damningly and arguably of equal importance, is that those charged with managing this and taking action in progressive and affirmative ways seem to want to have ‘their hands tied’, which to any sentient being with a sense of decency, or shred of common-sense, is an abomination!
Onwards and sidewards amigos, onwards and sidewards…
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