Someone posted this up on Reddit, but did you know Atletico was first established as a kind of youth team for Bilbao?
The club was originally founded on 26 April 1903[7] as Athletic Club de Madrid by three Basque students living in Madrid. These founders saw the new club as a youth branch of their childhood team, Athletic Bilbao.[7] In 1904, they were joined by dissident members of Real Madrid.[8] They began playing in blue and white, similarly to Athletic Bilbao, but by 1911, Athletic were playing in their current colours of red and white stripes. Many believe the change was influenced because red and white striped tops were the cheapest stripes to make, because the same combination was used to make bed mattresses, and the unused cloth was easily converted into football shirts.
I did not know that. Moving along, this is all about the coronation of Marcelo Bielsa as the next ‘It’ manager in Europe. That’s about all I can glean from the tepid press build-up in any case. Leave your detritus below. Whoscored.com has likely teams and suspensions.
Kick off is at 2:45 PM EST, 19:45 GMT. Kristian Jack will post a match-recap immediately following the game!
I remember reading about this in Morbo… I love how clubs spuriously pop up like this.
I believe Arsenal play in red because they signed players from a load of clubs (including Nottingham Forest) and there were more players with red shirts than any other. Red was just a cheaper change.
I love Bilbao’s beginnings – the aristocratic rich educated kids and the dockworkers came together to form Vizcaya for the King’s Cup, and then merged permanently.
There’s also a story involving all the Claret and Blue teams sporing out from Villa.
I don’t think bielsa will ever be the “it” manager – he’s just an avant garde tactician. In reality, he has poor man management skills, doesn’t rotate players, doesn’t prioritize competitions, and has quirky/abrasive PR skills depending on who you ask. He’s the lead guitarist and vocalist for a band you liked in college but never really did much after signing a major label deal.
But he’s crazy and Jonathan Wilson writes articles on him! Four hour video analysis!
Falcao! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ofd6HDElZto&sns=em The Bielsa project is clearly dead.
The sheer focus on this game by The Score while Birmingham attempts to get in to the Prem is part of a vast Aston Villa / Score conspiracy. Someone get me Jose Mourinho…
Well that and one is a Championship playoff and the other is a European final!
UNICEF! OUTRAGE! REFEREES! etc etc etc