Before leaving for our trip to Spain, I was poking around looking at club football schedules to see if I could wrap a second match into our two weeks with a day trip outside of Madrid or Seville.  Being the soccer fan neophyte that I am, it was only a couple weeks before our trip that I realized I should check the Champions League schedule as Madrid’s two teams and Sevilla FC were all in the competition.   To my astonishment and excitement, on the second last night of our trip, Atletico Madrid was playing a Champions League match at home.  Splurging for great seats, I tucked two tickets into our luggage for the trip across the pond.

To say I was excited heading to the match would be an understatement.  We took the metro to the south west edge of the city and walked to the Estadio Vincente Calderón.  The streets fanning out from the stadium were already filling with fans more than an hour before kickoff and every twenty feet or so there was a table selling merchandise in the red, white and pale blue of Atletico.

After entering the stadium, we started to make our way toward our seats. Coming out of the concourse on the second level, we emerged to the sight of the pitch in the late evening light.  Beautiful.

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