it's funny you realise that now. in the bundesliga that's just a reality thanks to ownership and self-imposed financial rules. it's what i've been telling you guys for years: we're basically competing with a massive financial disadvantage, despite having by far the highest average attendance in our stadiums... that's still true even if all clubs adhered to FFP rules, but at least it'd stop the most egregious abuse to just "buy titles"...

It changes the statement that it was some kind of state conspiracy led by Franco. It was Madrid that made the move to snatch him, not the spanish government. You miss the part of the quote where it says that Di Stefano's contract with River had expired... it's not Madrid's fault that Barcelona wrongly agreed terms with River, rather than his new club, Millonarios.

You say that Madrid was a meh club before Franco, but this is completely wrong. Madrid won 2 out of the 7 Ligas that were held before the Civil War, and also 8 Copas. Barcelona also won 8 Copas, but only 1 Liga in that time. They were both very big clubs in Spain, with a huge following already. The only club that was more successful than them was Athletic, with 4 Ligas and 13 Copas... but that was because football's popularity was much higher in the Basque region up until the 1920's, so they had a head start.

I would disagree with the comment of Francoism issuing great support to Barcelona. The government pretty much stayed away from football as a whole, other than using the communist deflected players as propaganda, which did lead to occasional favours like Kubala's nationality.

If there was one club that was favoured though, then that would be Atlético... however, he wasn't really favoured by Franco or his government, but rather due to the club's strong ties with the army's aviation forces. Atlético even changed its name to Atlético Aviación for some time (Aviation Athletic), and they received money to build the stadium, a new training grounds, etc... which played a key role in their transformation from a club that relegated twice to Segunda in the 1930s, to one that won 4 Ligas between 1940 and 1951. These favours were only issued during the early years of the dictatorship, and like I said, were the Air Force's doing, and not the government itself, even if the military regime had complete control over the Air Force.



But Atlético has grown a lot in recent years...

They couldn't keep Aguero or Costa, but they could keep Griezmann. He's no even being paid more at Barcelona... the reason he left was because he was tired of parking the bus and wanted to know what it felt to play while having possession (or like he said, he was motivated to try to see how he'd fit in a different style of play).

Atlético aren't as rich as Madrid or Barcelona, but they do have a lot of money now. They spent over 90M€ on Lemar, 120M€ on Joao Felix, etc.... Simeone is the highest paid manager in the world (24M€ per season), and Griezmann's wage was even higher than that.

Obviously, I agree on your statement if we were talking about 4 years ago, but things have changed dramatically for Atlético in this time, and thanks to their good management, they've grown a lot. Their only issue now is that Simeone holds them back, especially in La Liga. He still plays without the ball, even at home against relegation teams... now that the bottom half of the teams have improved, they are much more capable of snatching points against Atlético by defending and counterattacking more effectively.

Jesus

Nice to know the money still stretches to paying off refs. Holy fuck.

they didn't even score the pen so it had no impact on the game. you were well beaten bud, lighten up.

Nothing to do with their pen, it's to do with the one we should have had. Make no mistake, if one of our lot put their hands in the air because they're a big pansy, it's 100% called as a pen.

Fucking trash. City looked so dangerous all second half and we do that fucking shit.