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Madrid : Sports

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  • Football

    Club Atlético de Madrid (often mispelled Athletico Madrid) is a Spanish football club based in Madrid who play in the Primera División of La Liga. Their home stadium is the Vicente Calderón Stadium, which currently holds up to 55,000 spectators. The club is one of the most successful in Spanish League history, having won both La Liga and the Copa del Rey on nine occasions, including a double in 1996. They also won the European Cup Winners Cup in 1962 and were European Cup runners-up and Intercontinental Cup winners in 1974. Atlético play in red and white striped shirts and blue shorts. During their history, the club have been known by a number of nicknames including los colchoneros or the mattresses due to their first team stripes being the same colours as old-fashioned mattresses. During the 1970s they became known as los indios. This was allegedly due to the club signing several South American players after the restrictions on signing foreign players was lifted. However there are a number of counter theories which claim they were so named because their stadium is camped on the river bank or because los indios were the traditional enemy of los blancos —the whites. The latter nickname refers to the club's city rival Real Madrid.

    Real Madrid Club de Fútbol (English: Madrid Royal Football Club, also known as Real Madrid, Los Blancos, Los Merengues) is a professional Spanish football club based in Madrid. Founded in 1902, it plays in La Liga and is one of the most successful football clubs of the 20th century, having won thirty-one La Liga titles, seventeen Copa del Rey and a record nine UEFA Champions League titles. The team was a founding member of the now defunct G-14 group of leading European football clubs. The club plays its home games in the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium in Madrid. Real Madrid is unusual in that, unlike most football clubs, it has been owned and operated only by its members (socios) since 1902. On December 23, 2000, FIFA awarded the Spanish team the title of the "Best Club of the 20th Century". Los Blancos is the most successful club in UEFA club football competitions history with nine European Cups and two UEFA Cups; more than any other European club. Real Madrid is the biggest and most extensive football club in the world according to the case studies at Harvard University in 2007. It is also the richest one in terms of revenue.

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