For a club like Atletico Madrid, their fans are a huge part of their identity. Whenever playing at the Wanda Metropolitano, it feels like the fans add another dimension to the game and truly become the 12th man of the team. But often fans go too far in the name of “Passion”. While it is true that it’s the passion that makes the sport of Football beautiful, sometimes, a show of passion turns into disrespect or even abuse in some cases.
And this exact emotion of disrespect was on full display last night at the home of Atletico Madrid when their cross-city rivals, Real Madrid came to pay them a visit on matchday 8 of La Liga. While the Madrid Derby or “La Derbi Madrileño” as it is called in Spain, is always a hostile affair, last night it peaked in the Wanda Metropolitano.
After Real Madrid took the lead early in the second half thanks to Eder Militao’s volley, the Atletico Madrid fans went into disrespect-mode, following Thibaut Courtois’ not-so-muted celebration. For those of you who are unaware, Courtois used to be an Atletico Madrid player before and has served the Rojiblancos before. But last night, the Red side of Madrid was having none of that. Lighters, whistles and even pocket knives were being thrown at Thibaut Courtois my Atletico fans. They even threw bags of shit at the Real Madrid goalkeeper.
In the end, the referee had to temporarily suspend the game in order to calm down the Atletico Madrid fans. That wasn’t all, for Rojiblancos, Vinicius Jr has been public enemy number one in recent years due to his on-field and off-the-field antics which honestly have nothing to do with Football.
Before the match, there were some Atletico Madrid fans who were planning some pretty racist stuff targeting Vinicius Jr. That is just too much. Yes, Football is a passionate sport, but to revert to racism to get at a player is utter nonsense. There was even a professional photographer who took up this topic and talked about it on his Instagram story on how fans were calling Vinicius Jr, “M**key!”.
This is where Atletico Madrid fans have crossed the limits when it comes to the very civil respect one human should have towards the other. And it just goes on to prove that indeed they are the worst fanbase in World Football. Thankfully there are new reports on the internet suggesting that at least one fan has been banned for life after his involvement in last night’s fiasco. Do you agree? Let us know in the comments below.
