Real Madrid C.F.

Real Madrid Club de Fútbol (Spanish pronunciation: [reˈal maˈðɾið ˈkluβ ðe ˈfuðβol]; Royal Madrid Football Club), commonly known as Real Madrid, or simply as Real, is a professional football club based in Madrid, Spain.

Founded in 1902 as Madrid Football Club, the team has traditionally worn a white home kit since inception. The word Real is Spanish for Royal and was bestowed to the club by King Alfonso XIII in 1920 together with the royal crown in the emblem. The team has played its home matches in the 81,044-capacity Santiago Bernabéu Stadium in downtown Madrid since 1947. Unlike most European sporting entities, Real Madrid's members (socios) have owned and operated the club throughout its history.

The club is the most valuable sports team in the world, worth €2.5 billion ($3.4 billion) and the world's highest-earning football club for 2013–14, with an annual revenue of €549.5 million. The club is one of the most widely supported teams in the world. Real Madrid is one of three founding members of the Primera División that have never been relegated from the top division, along with Athletic Bilbao and Barcelona. The club holds many long-standing rivalries, most notably El Clásico with Barcelona and the El Derbi madrileño with Atlético Madrid.

Sporting de Gijón

Real Sporting de Gijón, S.A.D. is a Spanish football club from Gijón, Asturias. Founded on 1 June 1905, it plays in La Liga. Known as Los Rojiblancos because of their red and white striped jerseys, their home ground is El Molinón stadium, the oldest professional football ground in Spain, in use since at least 1908. Its name is often abbreviated to Real Sporting or just Sporting. Its Asturian name is Real Sporting de Xixón.

History

The club was established in 1905 with the name Sporting Gijonés, Anselmo López being the first club president. King Alfonso XIII accepted the Royal patronage of the club for the Spanish Crown in 1912, introducing the term "Real" (Spanish for "Royal") to its name, becoming Real Sporting Club Gijonés. In 1916, a new change took place to adopt today's denomination, Real Sporting de Gijón. From 1941 until the 1970s, due to a temporary law forbidding the use of foreign words in football club names, the team's official denomination was Real Gijón.

In 1944, the club was promoted into La Liga for the first time, and played thereafter in both the first and second divisions, achieving greatest success in the late 1970s and early 1980s. During this period, with players like Quini, Cundi, Enzo Ferrero or Antonio Maceda and others, Sporting competed for the titles, finishing as runner-up of La Liga in the 1978–79 season and two consecutive teams runner-up of the Copa del Rey in 1981 and 1982. This successes allowed Sporting to beat the record of season tickets with 22,766 and allowed El Molinón to be selected as one of the hosts of the 1982 FIFA World Cup. During this time, Sporting competed in the UEFA Cup six times, losing in the Round of 64 four times and the Round of 32 twice, most recently in the 1991–92 season.

Gijón

Gijón (/ɡɪˈhɒn/, /ɡiˈhɔːn/, /hiˈhɔːn/ or /xiˈxɔːn/, Spanish: [xiˈxon]), or Xixón (Asturian: [ʃiˈʃoŋ]) is the largest city and municipality in the autonomous community of Asturias in Spain. Early medieval texts mention it as "Gigia". It is located on the Bay of Biscay, approximately 20 km (12 mi) north of Oviedo, the capital of Asturias.

History

Prehistory and Romanization

The first evidences of human presence in what is known nowadays as municipality of Gijón are located in Monte Deva, where exist a serie of tumulus, and in Monte Areo, where there are some neolithic dolmens. These dolmens were discovered in 1990 and is supposed it was built about 5000 BC.

The first noticed settlement (Noega) is located in Campa Torres. It has its origin between the 6th and 5th centuries BC. It was populated by Astures (Cilúrnigos) and later Romanized. Noega was progressively abandoned when the Roman wall in the peninsula of Cimavilla, called the Gegionem, was built.

This wall was the most important one of the Roman Asturias and it should be an important port of the Cantabric sea route and also, it crossed the center of Asturias by Lucus Asturum (nowadays Llanera) and linked in Asturica Augusta with the Ruta de la Plata (Silver route).

Sporting

Sporting may refer to:

It may also refer to a sporting club:

The term sporting was formerly used as a euphemism (during the 19th and early 20th centuries) to refer to

See also

All pages beginning with "Sporting"

Madrid

Madrid (/məˈdrɪd/, Spanish: [maˈðɾid], locally: [maˈðɾiθ, -ˈðɾi]) is a south-western European city, the capital of Spain, and the largest municipality of the Community of Madrid. The population of the city is almost 3.2 million with a metropolitan area population of around 6.5 million. It is the third-largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan area is the third-largest in the European Union after London and Paris. The city spans a total of 604.3 km² (233.3 sq mi).

The city is located on the Manzanares River in the centre of both the country and the Community of Madrid (which comprises the city of Madrid, its conurbation and extended suburbs and villages); this community is bordered by the autonomous communities of Castile and León and Castile-La Mancha. As the capital city of Spain, seat of government, and residence of the Spanish monarch, Madrid is also the political, economic and cultural centre of Spain. The current mayor is Manuela Carmena from Ahora Madrid.