Un viaje de Vallecas

 (A trip to Vallecas)

I was on a quest for a stand mixer.¹ Madrid has Spanish equivalents to big-box stores, but they're waaay out in the suburbs, not within easy reach of those of us without cars.² However, some diligent searching revealed a couple of stores that were likely prospects for what I needed in Vallecas, a neighborhood not too far away. It was a lovely spring Sunday afternoon, so I kissed my lovely wife, jumped on the Metro, and headed out.

A brief Madrid geography primer: The dotted line is the Madrid municipal limits. It's a good-sized city, about the size of Denver, or ten times the size of Manhattan. But central Madrid -- the part where we live and where the vast majority of the touristy/Instagram-y things are -- is the vaguely oval-shaped area in the middle inside the M-30 ring road. 

A closeup: We live (the large arrow labeled "home") in the southern part of the city, just southwest of the Retiro, near the Reina Sofia museum. Vallecas (yes, the arrow labeled "Destination") is outside the M-30, in what some of you -- and indeed many Madrileños -- might consider "bridge-and-tunnel country". It's a working-class neighborhood that used to be its own city until the 1950s, when it got absorbed by the Madrid juggernaut. Post-Civil War many people moved to Vallecas from more rural areas seeking work in the big city. Its identity has always been solidly working-class, left-leaning, and with a strong sense of local pride in the face of both perceived and real snobbery from the wealthier central parts of the city.

Another primer -- this time on el fútbol. The top-tier fútbol league in Spain (and therefore one of the top-tier leagues in the world³) is La Primera División de España, otherwise known as "La Liga". Spain doesn't have American-style "football" or "baseball", and while it does have a pro basketball league (ACB), the difference between the two is astronomical: ACB clubs made about €170m in 2023-24, while La Liga clubs made €5.4bn -- nearly thirty times more. So in US terms you can think of La Liga as the NFL, NBA, and Major League Baseball combined. 

But European sports leagues don't work anything like their American counterparts. In the US we have salary caps and other ways of making sure that clubs with huge followings and merchandising deals (ex: New York Yankees, Los Angeles Lakers, Dallas Cowboys) don't just win by out-spending everybody else. There are no such parity measures in Europe. The richest clubs hire the best players, so they win the most often, which makes them even richer, so they hire even more good players, etc. etc. 

...which gives a result like you have above. The teams that win US championships aren't all from New York or L.A.; they're from Kansas City, Boston, Milwaukee, Oklahoma City, Atlanta. In La Liga, it's basically Real Madrid or Barcelona every time. I'm not kidding; teams other than Real Madrid or Barcelona have only won *5* of the last 30 La Liga championships. 

But -- and this is the point of this entire long sports digression -- Real Madrid isn't the only fútbol club in Madrid. In addition to Atlético Madrid -- another wealthy club which is frequently near the top of La Liga standings and occasionally steals a championship from the mega-clubs⁴ -- there is Rayo Vallecano (essentially "Lightning of Vallecas" or "Vallecan Lightning"). Upon getting out of the metro I found myself staring at their stadium, right there across the street.

This is clearly not the gleaming €1 billion, 80,000+ capacity Bernabéu stadium (home of Real Madrid). For starters, the Bernabéu is guarded by significantly more than a padlock and a chain on the doors, and I'd never be able to just walk up, put my phone in the gap and take a picture. In fact, just to have the right to walk about the hallowed halls of the Bernabéu and tour the stadium on a non-game-day will set you back €35 (€54 for the guided tour).

But you've gotta love the pluck. This is a blue-collar team, a New-Jersey-not-New-York team. The painted logo on the side of the stadium (Rayo Matagigantes) literally means "Rayo giant-killers". Rayo has never won La Liga -- baseball fans, think Chicago Cubs if the Cubs had never reached the World Series and had no realistic chance of ever doing so. They've only placed highly enough to qualify for Europe-level tournaments⁵ two times in the last 30 years. Currently they are 13th (out of 20) in the league standings. This is a true neighborhood club. The fans don't come because Rayo Vallecano wins championships, they come out of neighborhood pride.

And that civic pride extends to the metro station. The Portazgo station (where the stadium is located) is decorated in Rayo Vallecano white-and-red, with the year of the team's founding (1924) prominently displayed. 

On the tracks themselves is a tributary mural to the team, which states (left panel) "Portazgo has the pride of being the station of Rayo Vallecano de Madrid S.A.D. since the inauguration, in 1976, of the Nuevo Estadio de Vallecas", tells the story of the team colors, and even has the team fight song. I've put the lyrics below,⁶ but if you don't want to read them, essentially they're an underdog's song, a musical middle finger to the Barcelonas and Real Madrids of the world. 

Oh, the stand mixer search? At the end of the day it was a bust; it was a Sunday, and both of the stores I went to were closed. But I didn't mind; I got to explore a little more of my new city on a sunny spring day, and discovered a little bit of civic and cultural history I'd known nothing about previously. Good day. 

---

¹Long story, which is why I have justly relegated it to a footnote: We were invited to some new friends' house for dinner, and wanted to bring dessert. I wanted to bake my reasonably-competent version of a Victoria Sandwich, which meant that I needed a stand mixer, because I wasn't going to cream about two sticks of butter and an equal amount of sugar and flour by hand. First-world problems, I know.↩︎

²I know; that seems weird to those of you who have never lived in, say, NYC or San Francisco, but no, we don't have a car. Unless you need to go to the equivalent of a big-box store having a car is really more trouble than it's worth. The public transportation here is so good (not to mention the free BiciMad e-bike rental network) -- and the in-city traffic is such a mess -- that getting across the city without a car is just easier.↩︎

³This is not just some sort of puffed-up new-adopted-country pride; Spain is really good at el fútbol. The Spanish national team won the World Cup in 2010, the Women's World Cup in 2023, UEFA Nations League in 2023, and UEFA Euro in 2024. La Liga clubs have also won 5 of the last 10 UEFA Champions Leagues (a giant all-Europe tournament).↩︎

⁴Of the five non-Barcelona-or-Real-Madrid La Liga titles in the last 30 years, Atlético has won three.↩︎

⁵Every year the top seven teams in La Liga qualify for one of the various all-Europe tournaments.↩︎

⁶

Rayo Vallecano always plays with boldness, courage and nobility.

In every match it gives its heart and its chest, aiming to be the best.

Triumph cannot be taken by anyone's hand.

Rayo Vallecano, playing is virtue,

Rayo Vallecano, strength and youth.

To see the clean triumph of your colors

the fans follow you, and it doesn't matter where,

unanimous, they proclaim their cheerful voice of champion.

Rayo has the composure of a champion, 

triumph cannot be taken by anyone's hand,

Rayo Vallecano, when it goes out to score,

Rayo Vallecano, playing is virtue,

Rayo Vallecano, strength and youth.

Alábi! Alába!

Rayo Vallecano!

Ra, ra, ra!↩︎