My first day at the museum

October 4, 1998. Real Madrid faces Real Betis, and a young teenager has a particularly nervous day. Not because of the importance of the game itself (Madrid lost 0-1, Finidi's goal) but because for the first time he was going to visit the Bernabéu Real Madrid Museum. Not the one now, the old one. A beauty.

The member of the "Peña" of supporters club had lived just months before two legendary nights in the stadium: that of the fallen goal (against Leverkusen, anyone already recognizes it) and the semifinal against Borussia that placed us in the final against Zidane and Del Piero. So we all wanted to see the brand new orejona, now I don't remember why... the trophy was not there with his peers. Above you can see the photo I took, the six old European Cups and the 1960 Intercontinental Cup. I have a photo, now I'm not sure where it is posted, of myself with all of them, without even being able to imagine that since then I would see many more, so beautiful, as exciting and as unique as each of our subsequent European Cups have been.

What a pleasure to be from Real Madrid to be able to talk about this in the plural.

That Real Madrid supporter from '98 now has this project in his hands: La Santiaguina. A website where we can talk about our past, present and future, defending and highlighting Real Madrid in the face of so much ignominy and mediocrity.

Savio and Finidi hug each other in a video that I wanted to rescue. To remember how happy and young we were in the 90s, and how happy -and not so young anymore- that we are now, with so many European and world trophies, which made that museum to be small (there was no space in 1998, I remember thinking about it that same day... Where will we put the next ones?). And now we are able to enjoy the current museum, and not to mention the upcoming Bernabéu...https://youtu.be/y6uZfjj5jyk

At that time, due to family ancestry, I had Betis as a second team. That day, they arrived in last position, but with a very recognizable line-up, as seen on the website  "Manque Pierda" where another treasure can be found: what the tickets of that time were like, in the time that would take us to the eighth and ninth Champions League.

Betis, by the way, would take two decades after that to win again at the Bernabéu.

And, to recognize one last curiosity... the Cup that I liked the most (because it was rare) was the Euskadi Trophy, which was held for three years and we won all three editions.

Things that Real Madrid does.