Gil hired and fired 27 coaches or managers in his first seven years including Ron Atkinson

Gil hired and fired 27 coaches or managers in his first seven years, including Ron Atkinson.However, in the 47-year-old Antic, it is as if he has found someone he trusts to challenge Real and Barcelona. They claim, for instance, that the true Madrilenos do not support Real Derby games take on a meaning which transcends local enmity. “If we beat them,” Gil claimed before one, “there’ll be a nationwide orgasm.”Atletico, though, have tended to beat Real more often than City defeat United (not difficult) and while Maine Road has become synonymous with failure, Antic led Atletico to their first Spanish double in 1996. Whatever Atletico achieve under Gil and his estimable coach, the former Luton player Raddy Antic, they appear destined to live with the knowledge that Real will always be the bigger noise.The contrast between the clubs’ grounds reveals much about their respective identities and place in the national and international hierarchy. Real’s Bernabeu Stadium lies on a salubrious thoroughfare called the Castellana, and does not look out of place among the museums, mansions, trees, lawns and monuments.The relationship between Real and Atletico can be likened to that of the Manchester clubs, Real’s high profile fostering a contempt bordering on paranoia among Atletico’s fans. In 1962 they became the second-ever holders of the Cup- Winners’ Cup, having disposed of Leicester, by strange coincidence, in the second round.

Twelve years on there was a Champions’ Cup final, where they were well beaten by Bayern Munich. But their image has always suffered by a very parochial comparison.Real Madrid, with all their European Cups, glamour and popularity, give a fresh twist to the topical notion of neighbours from hell. Likewise a summer outlay of pounds 38m which also secured Christian Vieri for pounds 12.5m, plus the much vaunted Jordi Lardin from Espanyol, and three others.Atletico have occasionally flirted with the status enjoyed by Milan, Ajax and company. The shock, at least with regard to Juninho, is that the diminutive Brazilian was so clearly born to grace the game’s great arenas: Maracana, San Siro, Nou Camp, Old Trafford, et al.At the risk of offending Atletico’s notoriously volatile president and owner, Jesus Gil, even their most ardent followers would be pushed to justify the inclusion of this venue on such a list.Yet the very presence of El Nino, “The Little One”, is proof of Gil’s 10-year crusade, nay obsession, to make Atletico one of Europe’s great clubs. When the lorries, cars and coaches are moving thick and fast, it is said that Juninho’s new constituency in the upper tier can feel the floor gently vibrating.Despite this unique feature, the Leicester fans queuing for tickets yesterday would have recognised it as a fairly typical inner-city stadium, albeit one with 57,000 seats.

The roads which service the Riverside scarcely compare with the six-lane Madrid ring road that roars directly beneath the Vicente Calderon’s main stand, parallel to the touchline, around the clock. Atletico’s home stands in the old industrial quarter of the Spanish capital, even closer to the murky waters of the Manzanares than Boro are to the Tees. And instead of the ICI plant which dominates the skyline in his previous habitat, Juninho now passes a massive gasworks as he drives to the ground.
Ah yes, driving. Juninho’s adoring public in Middlesbrough would have a surprise if they saw the stage for which he forsook the English game. One of the most striking things about the Vicente Calderon Stadium, where Atletico Madrid’s pounds 11m man renews hostilities with Leicester City tonight, is how similar its setting is to the Riverside Stadium. That, at the moment, is inching him towards the title.Yet after a contest with more twists than 20 hands of pontoon, few would care to bet that the final cards have now been dealt.

I think he’s probably 2lb or 3lb better than anyone else, you only have to look in the back of the Racing Post and you’ll see that if you’d backed everything he’s ridden with a pound this year, you’d be pounds 117 up. That tells a story.”The moral of which is that Dettori (level stakes loss on the season: pounds 38) is winning on horses which start with every chance, while Fallon, riding like a man possessed, is doing the business on both favourites and outsiders. “You only have to stand in a betting shop,” Cowing said yesterday, “and you’ll hear the Kieren fans and the Frankie fans.” Unless, of course, the championship goes all the way to a murky Monday afternoon at Folkestone in November, in which case you will be lucky to force your way through the door.. Fallon, meanwhile, was sailing down the outside with a perfectly judged challenge, and with the Irishman doing the persuading there was no sign of Russian Music’s tendency to idle after hitting the front.”That was a great ride,” Pollington said yesterday,” and Midnight Line at Doncaster last week was another.