Granada: Monday into Tuesday

Words: Jesús Cerro

Images: Jesús Cerro

If someone loves football, they probably hate games on Mondays.

If someone loves a team, they hate seeing it lose its status in the championship.

It’s hard to find reasons to go see a team play, in a relegation tussle on a cold Monday in January, in a match that ends up close to Tuesday.

No reason, except love.

It’s winter and, although the Sierra Nevada, the highest mountain range in Western Europe after the Alps, watches over the city, no storm or rain is expected. It’s cold, when the sun disappears.

We are in Andalusia, and with more than a dozen stadia worthy of any professional team, there is only one that has all its stands covered, La Cartuja, designed for athletics and rarely used for soccer. The sun is a regular guest in almost all games.

Jesús Cerro/ Terrace Edition. Granada CF. Spain.

Wrapped in the red and white colors of the scarves, the fans go to the Estadio Nuevo Los Cármenes at nine p.m., walking along Avenida Emperador Carlos V or along Torre de Comares Street, passing scarf stalls as the sun sets.

“Nuevo Estadio”, New Stadium, refers to the fact that there was a previous stadium, with the same name. In the facility, municipally owned and subject to political decisions at all times, the passage of time can be seen.

When Granada CF periodically plays in the Spanish top league, the stadium capacity is expanded by more than 10% with portable stands in the corners. This gives a maximum influx of 22,000 seats.

This stadium belongs to all the inhabitants of the city and the team has private owners. However, the people of Granada feel the team is much more their own than the stadium. It makes sense in a city in which its inhabitants, to boast, have the Alhambra, the Generalife and the Albaycín neighborhood, as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

And so, against all reason, foreign to non-football enthusiasts, all the seats in the stadium are filled in the match against Atlético de Madrid, one of the most important teams in the championship, and which practically fills the visiting area with football fans of nearby provinces.

When the game ends, there is less than an hour until the day changes. 0-1 in favor of the visiting team, which complicates the situation of Granada CF, penultimate in the standings.

Almost everyone will arrive home on Tuesday. And before going to bed, they will close their eyes thinking that with a little more luck, the next game everything will be different, except for the wonderful round trip to Los Cármenes.

You can find Jesús on Instagram: el_ground_lebowski

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