Real Madrid vs Atletico Madrid: Five Unique Facts about the Madrid Derby

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The coveted Madrid derby is around the corner. The familiar foes of Spain's capital will be locking horns in the La Liga on Sunday at the Estadio Civitas Metropolitano, the home of Atletico Madrid.

Atletico Madrid and Real Madrid have been fierce rivals since their inception. The rivalry runs back to the early 20th century. Although the world is more familiar with the El Clasico, many of the Madridistas consider this match as the most crucial match of the season.

With the city of Madrid boasting two of the very best teams in Spanish and European football history, the capital city rivalry is an exciting and fascinating one. Today we are going to talk about some unique yet missable facts about the Madrid derby-

Atletico Madrid were formed in reaction to Real Madrid

A group of Basque students living in Madrid attended the first-ever Copa del Rey final in 1903 between Bilbao's Athletic Club and Madrid FC, the team that would go on to become Real Madrid. They disliked the way Madrid FC played and 18 days later created a Madrid-based subsidiary of Athletic, which was later renamed to become Atletico de Madrid.

Atletico went 14 years without a derby win

From 1999 to 2013, Atlético de Madrid underwent a tough period of derby losses. They experienced 25 unsuccessful encounters against Real Madrid, until Diego Simeone's arrival turned things around.

Simeone at the helm resulted in a turnaround for Los Rojiblancos and a tilt in the favor of the derby record. Of the 36 following derbies, 10 were won, 12 ended in a draw, and 14 resulted in losses across all playing formats.

The history of traditional Cibeles Fountain

During the 1970s, the tradition of celebrating titles with fellow fans of your team at certain points in the city began to emerge in Spanish football. The Cibeles fountain, located in the very centre of Madrid, emerged as an ideal meeting point for such fans and, though today closely associated with Real Madrid, it was actually Atleti fans who first started to hold their celebrations there, after a LALIGA title win in 1977.

Over time, other fans began to copy them and it became the fan meeting point in the city for title wins; throughout the 1980s, Real Madrid fans would celebrate the victories of the iconic Quinta del Buitre generation there. By the time Atlético won another title in 1991 - the Copa del Rey - Cibeles had become so closely associated with Real Madrid that their fans decided to move their celebrations 600 metres down the city's Paseo de la Castellana avenue to Netptune's fountain.

This used to be a bigger fixture than ElClasico

Today, Real Madrid's arch rivals are FC Barcelona but the Madrid Derby was a bigger deal in the first couple of decades after the Spanish Civil War ended in 1939. As the all-time great Alfredo Di Stéfano once said: "Forget FC Barcelona... the team that can frustrate us is Atlético."

Nine of Atletico Madrid's Copa del Rey wins have come at the Bernabeu

Interestingly, the Real Madrid Santiago Bernabeu stadium holds a unique significance for Atlético de Madrid fans. They've triumphed in the Copa del Rey 10 times, and nine of those victories were witnessed at the home ground of their fiercest competitors. Out of these 10 title wins, only their 1996 victory against FC Barcelona took place on a different pitch - the La Romareda, the home of Real Zaragoza.