Sorry, The Athletic isn’t a streaming platform — at least not yet.
But if you’re looking for drama, suspense, plot twists and larger-than-life characters, Real Madrid have it all.
In December 2000, FIFA named Real Madrid the greatest club of the 20th century. At that point, they had won the Champions League eight times (including its predecessor competition, the European Cup) — the most prestigious trophy outside the international game.
They have won it another seven times since. That makes 15 in total for Real Madrid. No other team has anything even close. Milan have seven, Liverpool and Bayern Munich each have six.
Across the club’s 124-year history, no team have won more Spanish league titles, either. Madrid have 36 of those, with their fierce rivals Barcelona closest with 29.
When you think of Real Madrid, the first word that probably comes to mind is success.
But silverware alone doesn’t make for compelling viewing.
A view of Real Madrid’s Bernabeu stadium during 2024’s Champions League celebrations (Angel Martinez/Getty Images)
Award ceremonies are entertaining enough. The Oscars, the Grammys, the Ballon d’Or… glamour has its place.
But if you ask me, what really matters is whether the story itself is worth watching. And here’s a minor spoiler: if you choose to follow Real Madrid, prepare for an emotional ride.
But this team is almost impossible to fit into a single genre.
Epic adventure is probably the obvious one. Think The Lord of the Rings or The Last of the Mohicans; the hero refusing to surrender, somehow finding a way back when everything appears lost.
Real Madrid has that in spades. They are famous for those unforgettable nights of elite European football when, seemingly beaten, they rally to rewrite the ending. Like the 2023-24 Champions League semi-final second leg against Bayern Munich, when two dramatic late goals in three minutes completed yet another scarcely believable comeback.
Or their extraordinary run in 2021-22, when Paris Saint-Germain, Chelsea and Manchester City were all swept aside in consecutive knockout rounds, despite appearing to be in control.
You suspect former City manager Pep Guardiola spent hours afterwards trying to explain the unexplainable, like Matthew McConaughey searching for answers in Interstellar.
That is where our job comes in.
Real Madrid’s Vinicius Junior, Kylian Mbappe and Jude Bellingham all starred at the World Cup (Oscar del Pozo/AFP via Getty Images)
Part of our role, as Real Madrid correspondents for The Athletic, is to separate myth from reality — without losing sight of why the myth exists in the first place.
Because for all the brilliance on the pitch, Madrid can also feel like an episode of House of Cards.
You only have to look back to our reporting over the 2025-26 campaign, which ended in May. It was a season of internal tensions, power struggles and plans shrouded in secrecy. It may not quite qualify as horror, but there were certainly moments that sent a shiver down your spine.
We try to bring readers closer to all that. Not simply to explain what happened, but to understand why it happened — and what comes next.
The level of drama around Real Madrid is almost unparalleled in world football (Thomas Coex/AFP via Getty Images)
The cast, of course, only adds to the appeal.
Jose Mourinho is back as head coach. Kylian Mbappe, Vinicius Junior and Jude Bellingham are the team’s leaders. Before them came Cristiano Ronaldo, and the Galacticos built around Zinedine Zidane, David Beckham, Ronaldo Nazario and Figo. Further back still, you have legends like Alfredo Di Stefano.
It sometimes feels as though Madrid’s Santiago Bernabeu stadium has hosted football’s equivalent of Marlon Brando, Al Pacino and Robert De Niro — and it now holds the modern generation of blockbuster stars: Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt and Johnny Depp.
There is quality everywhere.
More importantly, there are always stories waiting to be told.
