Manuel Briñas is 84, wears dark spectacles and has a thin white moustache to go with his hair. He lives in the residency of a Catholic school in the north of Madrid, walks with the help of a crutch hooked over one arm and spends every other weekend at the Vicente Calderón, standing alone watching Atlético play from among the photographers, technicians and stewards behind the advertising boards. At the end of each game he heads quietly out through the tunnel that leads to the cark park under the north stand where the media wait for the players, cameras ready and microphones in hand.
This Saturday, they waited for him. Like the immense majority of those who do the job he does, as important as they are anonymous, Briñas normally goes unnoticed but this time was different. He had started his slow walk along the edge of the pitch but someone there was looking for him, which meant that soon everyone was looking at him. “I was heading home when I felt a tap on the shoulder,” he explained, voice breaking. “I turned and it was Fernando [Torres]. He whispered in my ear: ‘This is for you, you made me love these colours. I’ll be grateful to you for the rest of my life.’”
Continue reading...