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kottke.org posts about Real Madrid

One Real Madrid fan’s magical adventure

Abel Rodríguez waxes floors for a living in Los Angeles and takes two weeks of vacation a year to work gratis for Real Madrid when the European football club trains in Los Angeles every summer. He had always dreamed of seeing Real Madrid playing their Spanish rivals Barcelona in Madrid, so his family persuaded him to go. He went. With no hotel or ticket to the game, he sat outside the club’s training complex for hours until manager José Mourinho spotted him as he was leaving…”Stop! It’s the guy from Los Angeles.” Thus began Abel Rodríguez’s magical journey.

You never know when karma will come back and reward you for something. For seven summers Rodriguez worked for free for Real Madrid, even when the club was willing to pay him for his efforts in Los Angeles. Now he was about to experience the thrill of a lifetime.

Oh man, I’ve got something in my eye.


FC Barcelona vs Real Madrid

In the next two and a half weeks, Spain’s two best soccer teams — FC Barcelona and Real Madrid — play each other four times. There was today’s regular season La Liga game, April 20’s Copa del Rey final, and then two semifinal games in the Champions League, the European championship. As Mike Madden said on Twitter:

Barça-Madrid 4 times in 18 days. Would be like if Michigan and Ohio State played every week for a month, and everyone in U.S. was an alum.