Atletico Madrid may or may not win this season's La Liga title, but one thing clear from figures published in Spanish sports paper Diario AS is that for this season at least the football club has the most loyal fans in Spain.
The newspaper published a list of attendances in La Liga stadiums, showing that the Vicente Calderon Stadium has been filled to 91 percent capacity this season in which Atletico are jousting with Barcelona and Real Madrid for the title, reports Xinhua.
Real Madrid come second in the list with the Santiago Bernabeu at 87 percent capacity for the season, while Barcelona have seen an average of 76 percent of the seats in their Camp Nou Stadium occupied this campaign.
It should be pointed out that both the Bernabeu and the Camp Nou also see the highest numbers of tourists in their ranks, rather than supporters who go week in week out to cheer on their teams.
Barcelona, Atletico and Real Madrid also have the advantage of never having any games shown free to air, nor have they had to play on Monday or Friday nights or had any 10pm weekend kick offs -- all factors which tend to lower crowd numbers.
Basque outfit Eibar's Ipurua stadium is the third fullest ground in Spain at 85 percent capacity for the campaign, although it should also be pointed out that with a capacity of 6,200 in a town of 30,000 inhabitants, it is also the smallest in the competition.
Just down the road, Athletic Club Bilbao's San Mames Stadium has been 81 percent full, which is down on the previous season's 91 percent, while despite Valencia's troubles the Mestalla stadium has maintained a very healthy 83 percent attendance level.
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The bad news is for bottom of the table Getafe, with just 42 percent of their seats filled, while Espanyol have struggled to half-fill their 40,000 capacity Cornella-El Prat stadium and struggling Levante have only had the Ciudad de Valencia at 56 percent capacity for the season.
--IANS
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