Madrid, Capital of the World Cup
So far the 24 Madrid-based players have scored nine goals between them in just four days of play.
Between them, Real Madrid and Atletico have a total of 24 players at the World Cup – 15 coming from the Bernabeu and nine from the Wanda Metropolitano. And so far, Madrid-based players have scored 9 goals in the first four days of play.
Six of those goals came in the thrilling 3-3 draw between Spain and Portugal on Friday night, with Cristiano Ronaldo scoring a hat trick, Diego Costa netting two and Nacho one. Antoine Griezmann and Luka Modric both managed to score penalties for their respective countries, France and Croatia. So far, that makes it five goals by Real Madrid players and four by Atlético men.
Madrid was the christened the capital of world football when Real and Atlético went head to head in the Champions League finals of 2014 and 2016. And now it is the undisputed Capital of the World Cup.
Especially noteworthy has been the start from Cristiano Ronaldo. The Portuguese has now scored in all for World Cups in which he has participated. Diego Costa also stood out against Portugal, pulling off his best performance yet in a Spain jersey.
This is the World Cup which sees the largest-ever number of Real Madrid representatives: Kroos (Germany); Casemiro and Marcelo (Brazil); Keylor Navas (Costa Rica); Modric y Kovacic (Croatia); Carvajal, Nacho, Lucas Vázquez, Sergio Ramos, Asensio and Isco (Spain); Varane (France); Achraf (Morocco); and Cristiano (Portugal).
Atletico’s nine representatives, meanwhile, are: Koke, Saúl and Costa (Spain); Griezmann and Lucas (France); Giménez y Godín (Uruguay); Filipe Luis (Brazil) and Vrsaljko (Croatia).