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| Full name | Real Madrid Club de Fútbol[1] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Nickname(s) | Los Blancos (The Whites) Los Merengues (The Meringues)[2] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Founded | 6 March 1902 (as Madrid Football Club)[3] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Ground | Santiago Bernabéu Madrid, Spain (Capacity: 80,354[1]) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Chairman |  Ramón Calderón[4] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Head Coach | Juande Ramos | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| League | La Liga | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 2007–08 | La Liga, 1st[5] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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 Current season | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Real Madrid Club de Fútbol (also known as Real Madrid, Los Blancos, Los Merengues) is a professional football club based in Madrid, Spain. It holds the record as the most effective team in Spanish football and was voted by FIFA as the most successful club of the 20th century,[6] having won a record thirty-one La Liga titles, seventeen Spanish Cups, a record nine European Cups and two UEFA Cups.[7][8] Real was a founding member of FIFA[9] and the now-defunct G-14 group of Europe's leading football clubs as well as its replacement, the European Club Association.[10]
Founded in 1902, Real Madrid has since spent all of its history in the top flight of Spanish football. In the 1940s, the club, the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium and the Ciudad Deportiva were rebuilt following the Spanish Civil War. During the 1950s, Real Madrid established itself as a major force in both Spanish and European football. During the second half of the 1980s, the club had one of the best teams in Spain and Europe (known as La Quinta del Buitre), winning two UEFA Cups, five Spanish championships in a row, one Spanish cup and three Spanish Super Cups.
The club's traditional home colours are all white. It has played its home professional games in the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium in downtown Madrid since 1947. Unlike most European football clubs, Real Madrid's members (socios) have owned and operated the club since its inception.
Real Madrid maintains a large fanbase and holds numerous long-standing rivalries with several other teams. The club semiannually contests the El Clásico with FC Barcelona which is its most notable rival. The club is the world's 2nd richest football club (€351m) in terms of revenue and the second most valuable (worth over €950m as of 2008).[11][12]