Is There a Rivalry Forming Between Real Madrid and Celta Vigo?
By Ben Sundock
A rivalry is budding between Real Madrid and Celta Vigo. Celta sent Real crashing out of the Copa Del Rey quarterfinal a couple of weeks ago dispatching Los Blancos 4-3 on aggregate. The two were set to face off Sunday in Vigo again but, a storm damaged the stadium leading the Mayor of Vigo, Abel Caballero, decided it was unsafe to play the match as scheduled. Then, Real Madrid released a statement Monday calling the Mayor of Vigo a liar after what he said in his statement. So, is there a rivalry brewing between the team from the West coast and the team from the capital? Ben Sundock looks into the matter:
There has certainly been a lot of drama over a game that didn’t happen. The drama began Sunday, around when the game was supposed to take place, when Mayor Caballero released a statement on the status of the game. In the statement, Mayor Caballero said that Real Madrid pushed for the game to be played as scheduled, not caring for the safety of the fans who were to attend the contest.
The Mayor called the behavior by the Madrid front office “absurd” and “arrogant.” Mayor Caballero also said that he had been told “some Madrid employees had told their fans to go to the stadium, knowing there was no game,” to pressurize the authorities into staging the fixture.
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“If that happened, it is extremely serious, and a danger to public order and security. I want to believe it was only a rumor,” he added.
This caused serious displeasure amongst the Real Madrid camp as they released a prepared statement saying, “Real Madrid C. F. regrets the unfortunate statements made by the mayor of Vigo, Abel Caballero, in which he states that this club disregarded the security measures required for the Celta de Vigo v Real Madrid C.F. fixture to go ahead.”
“Not only are the mayor’s comments inappropriate, they are also totally inaccurate, because at no point in time did Real Madrid C. F. question the security measures in place at Balaidos.”
Later in the statement, Real Madrid said they laid out a possible alternative to being able to play the match as planned:
“Having learned of the possibility of the game being postponed more than 30 hours ahead of kick-off, the club proposed three alternatives to the Professional Football League,” the statement continued.
“Firstly, for consideration to be given to the possibility of repairing the damaged stadium roof; secondly, the possibility of the affected stand being closed; and thirdly, if the two aforementioned options were not possible, to look into staging the fixture at another nearby stadium.”
“These proposals were made with a view to avoiding the postponement of the fixture from negatively impacting upon the four competitions, given the knock-on effect it would cause between them, as well as the massive financial losses suffered by television channels from around the world, which will have an impact on future tenders for the sale of broadcasting rights.”
The Verdict: Is There A Budding Rivalry?
The way I see this back and forth going, combined with Celta defeating Real in the Copa Del Rey just a couple weeks ago, this matchup has the potential to be a rivalry. When the match is rescheduled and played, if it’s a close chippy affair, it will be the nail in the coffin and we can call Celta Vigo and Real Madrid a rivalry. But until then, we will have to wait and wonder.