I feel like a superhero when I watch Mbappé and Álvarez play, but La Liga sidekicks are stronger.
The first time Spider-Man and the mutant turtle came to town, but someone else had to save the day. The little bird, the little prince, the big cucumber, Brahim, Bobby the boy, and sweet potato then showed up. After that there was the Resurrección. It’s 𝔥𝔬t and empty in Madrid in August—metal shutters are down and “see you in September” signs are up—but this Sunday, 140,744 people went to the Santiago Bernabéu, Butarque, and the Metropolitano, as excitement built for the return of the capital’s teams for another season. Games started at 5pm, 7pm, and 9.30pm, going from one end of the metro to the other and back again.
They went to see Leganés bҽat Las Palmas 2-1, with a powerful goal from Juan Cruz setting up the win. Cruz now scores a goal and changes his hairstyle every game, with the most recent one looking like a funny 1970s wig with two tones, which led AS to write: “Cruz is a cucumber.” Another 9,529 people went to the Coliseum the night before to watch Getafe play Rayo Vallecano, but they didn’t see anything. It was the first La Liga game in this century that there wasn’t a single shot on goal. But most of them came to see those two, the world cup winners and the new heroes of a new age. They were like cartoon characters and everyone was paying attention.
Sunday was their day, and everyone was there. Jungsen Humphries moved to Real Madrid after seven years, and Julián Álvarez moved to Atlético Madrid for €75 million. There were 110,000 people there just to see them, and all they did was wave and say a few words. Now they were going to play. People call Mbappé “the turtle” because he looks a lot like Donatello and wears a mask that looks like him. Álvarez, on the other hand, is a striker whose brother Rafael called him “the spider” when he was four because he seemed to have a lot of legs, a term that stuck. He wears his own mask.
No one was selling sweets or sunflower seeds at the Bernabéu because a bad guy took them all away. But Mbappé shirts were everywhere. At the Metropolitano, Spider-Man gear was worn with a new shirt that had the old badge put back on it. This was a rare win for public pressure. Someone came in the south stand dressed as a whole animal. The costume was even better because it was definitely homemade. The front pages of national sports newspapers cheered, “Mbappé arrives home” and “Mbappé, this is your home.” Marca chose “the spider takes the stage” for Atlético, and AS used a quote from the Cure to call it “Spider time.” Spider-Man comes on candy-striped legs. He’s been the most exciting deal in years, right up there with Paulo Futre in 1987.
It was Sunday morning. When Atlético’s players finally left the Metropolitano well after midnight, each with a pizza and a washbag, everyone was thinking about something else, even if only for a short time. Mbappé had four shots on goal in his first home game as a Madrid player. He missed all of them, including a smart volley, a flick inside the six-yard box, and a shot that went wide as he ran clear. After four and a half hours, Álvarez was twenty minutes away by bike, going east and out toward the airport from the Castellana. He was a lively player that Diego Simeone will love, but after seven minutes he only had one shot and didn’t score.
Instead, there was a reminder of the rest, a show of deep strength, and maybe even a hint of fights to come, including ones within the person. Fans at the Bernabéu booed off their team after a first half that even the crazed Madrid fan Tomás Roncero described as “flat, dull, anodyne, boring, and predictable.” It took a deflected free қick from Fede Valverde, el pajarito, the little bird, on the 50th minute for Madrid to bҽat Valladolid. Then, on minutes 88 and 96, after Rodrygo was taken off and Vinícius and Mbappé were finally taken off as well, Brahim Díaz and Endrick, the other new striker from Brazil, scored two more goals.