Madrid is an amusement park. Things happen all the time, every day, and when everything happens all the time, in the end nothing really happens. On Sunday, March 24, while the jokes about the Garibaldi Tavern were dying down, Madrid was preparing to inaugurate two of its new attractions: Palm Sunday and the grand final of the Valorant Masters.
The action had started a day earlier, on Saturday the 23rd in the afternoon, at the Madrid Arena stadium, half an hour from the center by metro and in a fairground closer to abandoning and reconquering the weeds than to sponsoring a great event. esports international. The stadium stood as the exit from the labyrinth of closed streets and steel fences that is the Casa de Campo site. A feeling of loss and disorientation increased by the fact of arriving late and having had too many problems with taxis.
Entering the Madrid Arena was like changing eras: from the almost post-apocalyptic dystopia outside to the partying and celebration of electronic sports inside. Saturday was a relaxed day, the final of the losers bracket was being played, a kind of play-off for the teams that had lost in the main classification. The Americans Sentinels against the Singapore team Paper Rex. Sentinels' victory occurred with its back to the city, which, among beers, cafes and many tourists, was preparing for the processions the next day.
Whenever I go to Madrid I remember the article Una DANA en el Primark de Gran Vía by Israel Merino. I think about that text when I get on the subway and get off in Callao because my hotel – I think the best I've ever been in – is in that center of the center of the requetecentro that Merino talks about and I reread it when they charge me more than three euros for a cafe in the Plaza Mayor. But I always end up participating in the circus. On Saturday night I had an obligatory stop: the Garibaldi Tavern, where a kind waiter who was not Pablo Iglesias charged me three euros for an Estrella Damm that I left halfway.
I would love to detail my route through the center of Madrid, but this should be a chronicle about electronic sports, so I will leave aside my horrifying visit to the Kawaii Café and the descent into hell that is the torrent of crawling people by El Rastro.
At three in the afternoon on Sunday the 24th, Telemadrid began its broadcast of the La Borriquita and El Silencio processions and, from the Madrid Arena, Riot Games began a press conference to share with journalists their opinions and wishes about the grand final. of the Valorant Masters Madrid, the Valorant competitive scene and the future of this popular esport.
I arrived late at the stadium and missed the press conference and the warm-up showmatch. Things about returning by AVE that same day and having problems with Renfe. But I arrived just in time for the grand final: Sentinels against the Korean formation Gen.G, a rematch highly anticipated by fans of both teams, since it was precisely Gen.G who had eliminated Sentinels from the main classification just two days before. .
I've been following Valorant since it was released in mid-2020. I've been to several of its in-person events and I'm always surprised to see how Riot Games goes to great lengths to make everything so spectacular. The circular stage, surrounded by cables and lights, stood right in the center of the stadium, under the dome of steel beams from which enormous LED screens hung that acted, at the same time, as a ruler for the public and as a window to the outside. playing field.
On the left, Sentinels players hunched in concentration towards their monitors, while Gen.G did much the same on the computers on the right. I am always surprised by the concentration and passivity of esports players, so calm and oblivious to the noise that comes from the stands. An especially difficult feat if you take into account the amount of noise that a Sold Out can make at the Madrid Arena.
The final was one of those that fans love: long and intense. Five maps were played and uncertainty took hold of each of them. In their last match, Gen.G had won 2 to 1, but Sentinels had learned from their defeat. Another thing that always surprises me at these types of events is the adhesions and zero hooliganism of the spectators. Everyone has their preferences, of course, but they shout and celebrate the great plays of all the teams equally. The same people who were shouting in favor of Sentinels, a minute later, could be shouting in support of Gen.G.
– I like Fnatic – says Yikun, a young man who has come from Barcelona to watch the final and who has decided to spend the weekend in an AirBnB patera in the La Latina neighborhood.
– What happens is that we bought the tickets before knowing which teams would reach the final – adds Pablo, a friend of Yikun, from Valencia and fellow AirBnB member.
Yikun and Pablo have met only twice in person. They are friends thanks to games like League of Legends and Valorant and know each other mainly through Discord calls. In fact, the first time they saw each other was in Barcelona, in the last final of the League of Legends Super League.
– These events also serve to devirtualize friends, you meet many people you only know from the Internet – says Yikun.
These events are a celebration, “an esports party” as the CEO of the Professional Video Game League, Jordi Soler, likes to say. A party, in fact, that has a surprising number of international attendees, plus all those who follow the competition online: an average of 670,000 viewers and a peak of 1.6 million on Twitch.
According to Catholic tradition, the masses waiting for the Messiah in Jerusalem received him with palms and branches in their hands. Hence the name: Palm Sunday, the first day of Holy Week and the last day of Valorant Masters Madrid. I could say that the victory of Sentinels was received as the arrival of the Messiah, but that would be going overboard by at least twenty towns. The comparison would get out of hand. Also, the plastic sticks – I think they're called clappers – sponsored by Master Card that the spectators brandished look much tackier than the claps.
Thanks to their victory, a very close 3 to 2, Sentinels pocketed a prize of $300,000 and took 6 points for the Valorant Champions Tour (the world) classification. And this has just begun. The next stop goes through Shanghai with another Valorant Masters.
