In a narrow apartment in Madrid, a white-haired man in a faded red and white scarf sat in a worn armchair with a plate of cold tortilla in his lap, staring at the television.
He was seventy-nine, and he had watched Atlético since before the Vicente Calderón had a roof. Beside him, cross-legged on the rug, sat his grandson, a thin boy of ten in a shirt with HIRO printed across the back, vibrating with joy.
"Did you see, Abuelo? Did you see?"
"I saw." The old man's voice was rough. "I saw."
When the ball had hit the net, the boy had leapt across the room and the old man had risen from the chair without knowing how, shouting hoarsely into the ceiling like a young man.
Now, an hour later, the television showed footage of the stand, and the thrown cups and the knot of fighting bodies, and the old man's face was heavy.
"Why do they do that?" the boy asked quietly. "Why do they throw things?"
His grandfather was silent for a long moment.
