already designated as venues for the second official match in Spain of the main American football league. After hosting the premiere with the November 2025 duel between the Miami Dolphins and the Washington Commanders, the Santiago Bernabéu will repeat on November 8, 2026 with the meeting between two teams that have recently reached the Super Bowl, but that have walked in recent campaigns through the lower-middle class of the competition.
As it did with other European markets, it has consolidated its commitment to Madrid with the commitment to hold a match this year and another in 2027, placing the capital for the moment as the “exclusive headquarters” of the competition in Spain in this period, ruling out alternatives on the table such as Barcelona. Both Real Madrid, owner of the stadium, and Madrid City Council and the Community of Madrid have presented a common front to announce an event of maximum logistical complexity – squads of 70 players and tons of material for the training week and the match itself – for which the Metropolitano and the white club’s sports city in Valdebebas participated last year. Matching the match was possible due to the coincidence between visiting matches of the white team in domestic competition and a national team break. The chosen advantage responds to the same criteria to allow time to make the transformation to an American football field.
–there were friendly meetings in the 90s– it had more coverage because the Miami Dolphins, the organizer, were one of the most traveled teams, with more fans in Spain and with more interests in the country due to the Latin heritage. They are, in fact, one of the three franchises with commercial rights in the country. The other two are the Chicago Bears, a historic franchise in its recent best, and the Kansas City Chiefs, the best team of the last decade, with its quarterback, Patrick Mahomes, considered the best player in the world. His presence would have made the meeting very attractive, but the league has used somewhat more secondary actors.
The Atlanta Falcons’ home selection has already closed doors, as the teams know in advance the rivals with whom they compete each year in a league with 32 franchises and 17 games due to division rotation. After starring in the biggest debacle in a Super Bowl in 2017 by losing a 28-3 lead against the New England Patriots, they have not made the playoffs in the last eight years. With a permanent crisis in the quarterback position, its great attraction is Bijan Robinson, a runner capable of spectacular actions.
The Bengals don’t know what it’s like to win a Super Bowl either. The last time they reached it was in 2022 to fall to the Los Angeles Rams in the explosion of Joe Burrow, their great leader, as one of the best young quarterbacks in the league and a dominant defense. The following year they should have finished the job, but they were knocked out in the conference finals due to a stupid personal foul for a push off the field in the final seconds against the Chiefs. Since then, three seasons without a playoff and a poor balance of six wins and eleven losses in 2025. Small market, Ohio, like its neighbor, the Cleveland Browns, one of the rivals that could have chosen the league in a division with two major teams such as the Pittsburgh Steelers – the team that leads the record along with the Patriots – or the Baltimore Ravens of Lamar Jackson, another star quarterback. They will not be in Madrid.
The announcement comes before the NFL unveils its schedule this Thursday. The one in Madrid is one of the nine international matches that will be played next season across seven countries and eight stadiums. France and Australia join in with meetings in Melbourne and Paris. Repeat Brazil, but in a new headquarters: Rio de Janeiro. London remains the capital of the expansion with 42 of the 61 games played to date outside the US. And Munich, with a formula similar to that of Real Madrid, at the Allianz Arena. An equation that completes Mexico City. The NFL numbers Spain as a global market with 11 million fans. The biggest fans of this sport in Europe are, according to his calculations, in Germany.
