In Town: Chasing Promotion with Málaga CF

You could spend a lot of time Málaga, on Spain’s Costa del Sol, and — unless you knew what to look for — have no idea there’s a football club in town.

You could walk up to the medieval castle on the hill, with a sweeping view of the city and bay. You could stroll along the beach and buy sardines roasted over an open fire in a boat-shaped grill. You could get a table in a seaside restaurant and eat calamari that may have come from a boat you can see from your seat. You could stroll through ancient winding streets, passing Roman ruins and tapas restaurants and gift shops and ice cream and souvenirs and high-end clothing shops. You could tour the courtyards and gardens of the ancient Arab palace. And you would be far from alone in doing any of it, but it may also be that you wouldn’t really be in town. You’d be in the Old Town.

Follow them!

Don’t get me wrong, Old Town Málaga is lovely in all ways. But if you don’t learn to recognize the occasional light blue shirt or scarf, you would have no idea that on the edge of the city center lies a modern, lovely stadium which, for a 9 p.m. Sunday kickoff in the second division of Spanish football, will be packed with 30,000 jumping, shouting and singing fans – people of Málaga – for whom that right there is the most important thing going on that evening. Serving you ice cream or patatas bravas or sardines is just their day job.

I did everything listed in that second paragraph over two days in Málaga. I was a tourist, like any other tourist. But I knew something few, if any, of the others knew: that a promotion-chasing Málaga Club de Fútbol had a home game that night. Málaga was hosting Albacete but dreaming of visits from Real Madrid and Barcelona for the first time in almost 10 years. They had been in the third tier one of those years!

So I joined the ever-more-blue march through the streets, out of the old town, trading designer clothes and Costa Del Sol tee shirts for old-man cafeterías and fundación thrift shops. I followed the colors — nobody checking their phones for directions around here — out past the big apartment buildings, past the playgrounds, along streets filling with young and old stopping for a beer or greeting each other the way football supporters always do, some Andalusian version of “Here he is! Let’s go!”

Right at home!

I took my seat way up high behind a goal, a warm coastal evening with no roof, mountains in the distance, the sea just visible, the sun setting around 8:30, and Spaniards of all ages and appearances filling the stand around me. That old sense of being there but not quite “part of” came around, but I comforted myself with the thought that at least I am here, at least I know Málaga are in the hunt for promotion to La Liga, that they’re home against somebody well down the table and need to win this one – and hey, we’re all here for the football anyway. A football stadium at least strives to have no cultural divisions. And a stadium when somebody is chasing promotion is completely different from one used to lifting trophies. I always feel like, on some level, it means more to people in Málaga than in Madrid.

Here against Barça next year?

The home team struggled, but they won, a nervous 1-0, so everybody relaxed more than celebrated. Then we all spread back out into the streets, me looking for something to eat. Dinner at 11 pm Sunday after a game – nothing could be more Spanish, and every place with food that I walked by was packed. Finally, I found a spot with hamburguesas and a small empty table just outside the door, surrounded by a group of guys. I waited for my order while locals discussed the game and other things I couldn’t make out. I got just enough scraps to recognize the usual refrains: We won, but it wasn’t good enough. We’ll never get promoted like this. The new kid did well.

I’ve heard that stuff from Newcastle to Naples and from San Sebastian to Scunthorpe, and forget the language: It’s the same everywhere, every weekend. And like all those places, I walked right past the tourists – okay, so there’s no tourists in Scunthorpe – because I knew there was a game on. I knew what the people around cared about, would be talking about later. I went, then I was hungry, and now I was having a decent burger and cool drink on a warm night after the home team won.

Lots of people were in Málaga that night; I was in town.

Málaga are pushing for a return to La Liga. If they make it, you’ll want a ticket. We can help with that.