Football's Secret Trade

Chapter 1The Son of Jesús

On a winter morning at Atlético Madrid's Vicente Calderón stadium, receptionists wear overcoats indoors as portable heaters struggle to provide a modicum of warmth. Madrid, which is on a plateau 600 metres above sea level and surrounded by a snow-capped mountain range, gets cold in the winter and Atlético's offices are not centrally heated.

The 55,000-seat ground is in a nondescript district south of Madrid, wedged between a six-lane ring road and a brewery. When Atlético is playing at home in the depths of winter, fans sitting in the uncovered stands are exposed to the chill wind and rain.

Atlético is the antithesis of its flashier rival Real Madrid: a working-class commoner to Real's nobility. Formed by three students, Atlético became known as “Los Colchoneros”, the mattress makers, in the 1940s because their red and white shirts looked like the mattress covers that were common at the time.

When the team moved to its present stadium after the Second World War, it struggled to raise enough money to complete the arena. The arena's last major refit was in 1972, in the final years of General Francisco Franco's 36-year dictatorship.

Real Madrid (which means Royal Madrid in Spanish) is based in a stadium on the city's tree-lined main boulevard, Paseo de la Castellana. It's the equivalent of Paris having a football club on the Champs Élysées. On the club's premises you can order sushi, jamón iberico or barbecued meat in one of three restaurants.

Team president ...