Madrid is a well known city for many things and of course in the football world is considered a super power. We all know Madrid because of Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid and that’s basically it, but we bet you never knew exactly which team is more dominant when it comes to the fans inside the city (Not worldwide) or you probably didn’t know how were things seen from Madrid citizens’ perspective.
Madrid has many teams but except Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid and to a much lesser extend Rayo Vallecano, other teams are super small when it comes to the number of fans, so our main focus will be the teams mentioned above.
In the city of Madrid there is a myth that Real Madrid is supported by upper class people and Atlético de Madrid by lower class people. That might be true 30 or 50 years ago. Nowadays the fan bases are quite diverse and for example, the King of Spain is an Atlético de Madrid fan. What is true is that Vicente Calderón stadium (Atlético) is located in the south part of Madrid (working class area) and Santiago Bernabéu (Real Madrid) on the commercial district of Madrid around Paseo de la Castellana. It is also interesting that many high ranking members of Madrid (Army generals, aviation pilots etc) are fans of Atletico Madrid, it seems like a trend somehow.
Moreover, Rayo Vallecano fans are concentrated in the Vallecas neighbourhood. Vallecas was a separated town some decades ago and Rayo had been existing for about 30 years before the incorporation to the city of Madrid. That could explain not only why the fans are so geographically located (unlike Madrid and Atlético), but also why the team survived while tens of other “small” Madrid teams disappeared (e.g Nacional de Madrid, Moncloa FC, Racing Club de Madrid…)
When it comes to numbers it comes down like this:
Real Madrid 62% located in the pricey Chamartín district that is located just north of Madrid city centre.
Atletico Madrid 24% located in the eastern part of Madrid, in the Rosas neighbourhood in the San Blas-Canillejas district.
Rayo Vallecano 10% located just east of Madrid city centre, in the working-class neighborhood of Vallecas (in the Madrid district of Puente de Vallecas).
Other teams 4%
We couldn’t find/make a map that describes Madrid best but here’s one we found during our hard research for this city (It seemed like not many people cared who dominates this important football city)
Here’s the map:
