Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, me (and my manbag), Madrid

When booking trips abroad well in advance, I’ve often tended to forget about them until the week before, only then building up some kind of cursory level of anticipation in the last days leading up to it. More so if I’ve left the booking to someone else and just been a transferer of funds. As such, I’d learnt only a day prior to flying that we weren’t getting picked up at 6:30am and flying from Leeds-Bradford, as I’d quite wrongly assumed, but instead were flying at 6:30, from Liverpool and, as such, had to be ready to be picked-up at 4am.

Despite knowing this, I still fannied around until after midnight, making a fastidious meal of packing the paltry amount of hand luggage I’d opted to take and deciding to have a nice, hot, soothing bath just before I went to bed. Instead of, well, just going to bed…

Once at the airport, I couldn’t resist a quick customary pint of departure lounge Guinness and talked the others into it too. This turned out to be a wholly unwise undertaking that led to our names being called out over the airport tannoy (fame at last!) and an unwelcome, ungainly jog up to the gate. The zealously-guzzled Guinness (and the serene, twinkly strains of Steve Hillage’s ‘Rainbow Dome Musick’ in the headhones) helped me to grab some sleep on the plane for 30 minutes or so, meaning the flight… err… flew by.

There were the first signs of sleep-deprived boys beginning to bicker as we deliberated between getting a taxi to the hotel or the catching the Metro to our stop, right in the heart of the city centre. I’d suggested the Metro. Not because it’s cheaper and I’m a bit of a skinflint but because you can catch a voyeuristic glimpse of genuine Madridistas going about their daily lives, an early chance for people watching. Or ‘observar a la gente’, as Google Translate is no doubt wrongly suggesting the Spanish call it. Everyone seemed fine with the suggestion until impatient Haggis boisterously insisted on catching a cab once we’d walked the entire length of the terminal, instantly put off by the sight of a tiny queue at the ticket machine.

Being just a short waddle from Madrid’s main artery, Gran Via, or ‘big street’, as it sensibly translates as, we found our hotel easily enough. Although I almost made a touristy fool of myself by half-attempting to ask a waiter on a cig break for directions to it, turning round mid-query to see the side of a tall building decorated with a huge, rainbow mural spelling out the hotel’s name (below).

We dumped our bags, brushed our teeth, sprayed our armpits and headed out for a walk around town. We chanced upon the main square, Puerta del Sol, gawped at the touristy goings-on for a biand soon found an appealing-looking bar with grey furry rugs draped over each chair in their sizeable al fresco area, henceforth known as ‘furry bar’. The irresistible charms of Cafe society (or ‘sociedad del café’? I’ll stop soon, honest) temporarily took ahold of me as I resisted being ribbed by the others and ordered coffee and a savoury crepe, before getting on the cerveza trail for the second round.

We quaffed our beer, scoffed and sneered at the posh, preening passers-by and tutted at the tragically trendy tourist toffs trotting past our table. Then, a bloke in 501’s and Adidas Sambas caught our attention; it was Danny, the affable scouser and ‘young John Parrott’-alike who was sat in front of us on our flight. It was nice to bump into a friendly face and, seeing as he was travelling alone and also attending the game, I reckon he was pleased to see us. That was until we told him we were just about to go and watch the Sheffield Wednesday v Leeds noon kick-off game in an Irish pub he’d only that minute vacated. He still came along though (“jus’ for the crack, like, la”).
Once inside ‘Dubliners’ bar, we surveyed the half-empty room, quickly rearranged the furniture, harangued the barman into beaming it on the big screen and ordered the first of umpteen buckets of ‘6 for €5’ Coronas and were given the first of many complimentary bowls of completely flavourless crisps.

We gave some good-natured grief to an English guy and his two teenage sons, all Chelsea fans, who came in and had to gather round on stools to watch their game with Hull on the poxy portable in the corner while we lorded it up in big screen opulence. We were very soon in receipt of a return serve of retributed ribbing as our beloved Leeds capitulated before our wearied eyes. An absolutely abysmal showing, particularly considering it was a local derby. This 6-0 tonking saw our two newly-signed ‘wingers’ make wholly inauspicious debuts and the whole worryingly spineless display had us genuinely fretting for the club’s future.

What followed ‘our’ abominable excuse for a game, along with more bland crisps and another bucket of beer, was an excellent bit of blanket football coverage: all the English 3pm kick-offs were being shown with a slight time delay, meaning the footage flitted from one game to the next as goals, misses or incidents occurred in any given match. A bit like watching ‘Soccer Saturday’, only we get to see all the action, rather than seeing Paul Merson and Phil Thompson make a tounge-tied, over-excited mess of telling us what’s happening. It’s never quite made sense why the coverage of English Premier League games is much better and much more thorough in pretty much everywhere but England. The day must surely be upon us when we can hark back to these simpler, more deprived times and chortle in disbelief at the hours we’ve wasted on saturday afternoons, watching live footage of ex-pros watching and clumsily trying to describe what’s occurring in a game we’re not allowed to see until later.

Soon it was time to cease watching televised football and hotfoot our way to watch proper football, in a proper stadium and everything. To be fair, it was more a tiresome trainer trudge than a ‘hotfoot’, although Carl’s feet were temporarily hotter when he pissed all over his own shoes. We had another round in Furry Bar then popped over to Ice Bar; an aptly-named emporium that offered extremely welcome, even cheaper icy buckets of ‘5 beers for €3’.

Being a scouser, our new friend Danny asked us if we ‘did any gear’. After getting a spluttered, noncommittal ‘Ahem, well, y’know… have done… in the past, on occasion, sort of…’ in response, he went outside for a crafty gasper, spoke to some young hombre, busy begging and scrounging tab ends, who then summoned over a toothless, cross-eyed old crone, off with whom Danny wandered.

He returned a couple of minutes later, winking and wearing a ‘we’re in luck!’ expression. Having needed no procurement encouragement from us, Danny excitedly untwisted the unsexy scrag of plaggy bag he’d just spent €50 on, revealing a tiny pouch of pastel-coloured powdery pieces that appeared to be some ‘Love Heart’ sweeties someone had just trodden on. As Danny threw them angrily to the ground, seethingly scouring the square for a secondary glimpse of the sleazy supplier, I pondered to myself whether this drug-deal rip-off had been painstakingly planned to such a headfucking degree that they’d specifically picked out Love Hearts emblazoned with these particular faux-romantic sentiments:

HAppy
MADly In Love
LoveFOOL
I Love YOU
TailorMADE
InTO You
LOOK Of Love
LIKE Me?
NOBody Else
HEADrush
BOYfriend.

So that the crumbled chunks of debris spelt out:

After Danny’s aborted narco-hunt, there was further evidence of his judgement being a little skewed when, to our collective amusement, he threw a Euro down at the base of a bronze statue of a streeet-sweeper, thinking it was one of those stupid stand-still street performer sods…

Eventually, after much drunken faffing around, it was time to sup up and pile onto the Metro to el estadio. Boarding this tube was the closest I’ve come to experiencing what it must be like to be forcibly and dangerously shoehorned onto a tube train the way they do in China. Unable to move, squashed up against several other humans, some soft and squishy, some jagged and bony. It was a fairly horrible experience that we were all glad didn’t last longer than 20 minutes. Danny, still no doubt angered by that rip-off drug deal, had a go at somebody he claimed was deliberately elbowing him in the back.

Once off the tube and able to breathe out again, we went to try and find the office from where we picked up our tickets, wading through the muddled crowds, people seemingly heading in every possible direction.

Suddenly, during a lapse in concentration whilst in conversation with Danny, I realised I’d lost the other three. I was obliviously walking alongside Danny towards the ticket office he was told to go to whereas the ticket office I required was… erm… well, I didn’t know… as I didn’t book them.

FUCK…!!! A massively claustrophobic crowd, a phone that doesn’t work abroad, an €80 ticket for a match I’ve travelled 1000 miles to watch and now won’t be able to see.

AARRRRGH…!!!! All because (to use a hackneyed football cliché) I took my eye off the ball. Or rather I took my eye off the direction in which my chums were heading.

Slowly, I began to resign myself to an evening of standing outside the ground, listening to the crowd chant and roar, I looked around aimlessly for even the slightest glimpse of mate and as Danny queued patiently for his ticket, blithely shrugging his shoulders at my foolishness, his phone rang. It was John, asking whether he knew where the fuck I’d gotten to. Thankfully, John had accepted Danny’s Facebook friend request earlier in the day his number was on his profile. Quick thinking!
YUSSSS!!!! I found out at which entrance turnstile we needed (21, if you’re interested), scurried through the still-thick throng of people and saw John, who said nothing but scowled, shook his head, gave me my ticket and clipped me round the side of the head.
We finally took our seats just as the teams were walking out, being greeted with the inevitable groans of “‘Ey up, he’s here… silly cunt… where did you wander off to? You jammy get! We couldn’t be arsed waiting around for ya, we just thought; ‘fuck him!’” 
Fair do’s I s’pose.

The match itself was an engaging enough way to pass a couple of hours. No goals and not exactly jam-packed full of missed chances at either end but the atmosphere was tense, the pace of the game was frantically exciting while the standard of football and the effortless aura every player exudes was very impressive. This was a game you sensed Barcelona could easily end up losing, as the Madridistas looked stronger, were well organised and created the better chances. Barça remain top on goal difference but, when it comes to securing that La Liga title, it might well be Atletico’s year.

Gabi, Raúl García and Koke are a trio of Spanish players who’ve come closest to matching the magicians in Barça’s midfield. Arda Turan, the Turkish dervish, showed some amazing bits of quick-fire skill, Diego Costa looked a real threat the entire game, nothing appears to get past the Uruguayan centre-half, Diego Godin but it was Atletico’s long-haired Brazilian left-back, Felipe Luis who really stood out for me; quick, strong in the tackle and such a force when bombing forward down the wing.

I’m not sure Barcelona’s new Brazilian superstar, Neymar is going to be the untouchable world-beater everyone assumes though. He looks like he’s trying too hard to not only impress but to fit in with the rest of Barça’s elite. This was football played at the highest level. Something I’d not personally witnessed first-hand since Leeds United were last regularly winning games in Europe.

Here are the highlights, if you’re the kind of person who’s interested in nil-nil draws: