logo
‘The Devils' Review: Joe Abercrombie's Gothic Suicide Squad Doesn't Quite Work

‘The Devils' Review: Joe Abercrombie's Gothic Suicide Squad Doesn't Quite Work

Forbes17-05-2025
The Devils by Joe Abercrombie (Review)
Vampires, werewolves and necromancers, oh my! Joe Abercrombie's new fantasy novel The Devils has all the hallmarks of the fantasy author's past books – bloody action, wry humor, rich world-building and a breathless pace – while delving into entirely new territory. And yet, despite all that, this is a rare misfire from one of my favorite fantasy authors.
The world of The Devils is a mirror of our own, an alt-universe where the Catholic Church has all female priests, a female (child) pope and a plethora of magical creatures, including dark and mysterious elves to the East, which humankind has been at war with for generations. In this fiction, the Crusades were not waged against Moors, but against elves – a race said to devour the flesh of humans, among other atrocities that are neither confirmed nor denied by the end of the story. This, we must assume, is being saved for the rest of the trilogy.
There is still a Schism between the Western and Eastern churches, though the Eastern church is headquartered not in Constantinople, but rather a reimagined Troy. There are lots of little touches like this throughout the novel, making the world of The Devils at once familiar and utterly distinct from our own.
The Europe of Abercrombie's story is in upheaval. The mad sorceress Eudoxia, Empress of Troy, has died, leaving the Serpent Throne empty. Her five sons have scattered across the land, vying for power. But the Western Church has a plan. They have discovered the long-lost heir of the Eastern Empire, a young waif named Alex who grew up in the streets as an urchin and thief. The young Pope Bendicta the First and her advisors hand Alex over to the Chapel of the Holy Expediency, a special operations outfit that handles the dirtiest church business with the help of a few monsters. Their task: Bring Alex to Troy and seat her on the throne. Naturally, it's neither that easy or that straightforward in the end.
We meet young Brother Diaz, a country bumpkin monk who has come to the Holy City with big ambitions, only to find himself the nominal head of the Chapel, both his nerve and his faith put to the test as he's plunged in way over his head. Diaz is accompanied by an immortal knight, a resourceful swashbuckler, an elderly vampire, a horny werewolf and an elf who can turn invisible (using a power that reminded me of Doli from The Prydain Chronicles). There's a solid balance of male and female representation here, and it's clear that Abercrombie made a concerted effort at this, though I believe his First Law books have lots of great female characters as well. Still, this is a much more female-driven story, with lots more sex, queer representation and so forth.
This is Abercrombie's Suicide Squad, essentially. Jakob of Thorn and Baptiste work for the church of their own accord, handlers for the rest of the titular Devils. The rest are conscripts – sentenced to work for the Chapel of the Holy Expediency for their various crimes. Baron Rikard is a geriatric vampire whose most frightening power is his magical voice and ability to persuade even large crowds to do whatever he wants. The more he feeds on humans, the younger he becomes; the more he expends his powers, the older. He has other more traditional vampiric powers, but it is his oratory that makes him dangerous.
The necromancer Balthazar is a powerful animator of the dead, but his arrogance renders him blind to many truths. His many attempts to free himself from the holy seal placed upon the Devils becomes a running gag involving various unpleasant bodily functions. Sunny the elf is perhaps the most out-of-place in the bunch, both because she's the lone elf in a realm of humans, and because she's so selfless and kind. She and Alex strike up a romance somewhere along the way. Vigga the Swedish werewolf is, in some ways, the female version of Logen Ninefingers, if the barbarian had been much less lucid and far, far more obsessed with rutting at every possible opportunity.
This band of ne'erdowells is sent by Pope Benedicta and Alex's uncle to bring her to Troy and seat her on the Serpent Throne. Naturally, of course, things go sideways. They are set upon by one of Eudoxia's five sons and his warband of mutant creatures – half-man, half-animal abominations created by the former Empress as part of her many diabolical experiments. Overcoming the first son, the group continues their journey only to face down one after another, each with his own gimmick: The pirate son with his sea-creature half-men minions, for instance; a band of hunters with their own, even deadlier werewolf. Four, in total, attempt to assassinate their niece and her oddball wards. There's a fifth, but we won't spoil his roll in the story.
Toward the end, the novel takes on some more traditionally Abercrombian twists and turns as hard truths are revealed and new threats emerge. There's lots of terrific action, some fun side characters, and plenty of surprises along the way. The chapters rotate between a handful of the characters in POV chapters: Alex, Brother Diaz, Jakob of Thorn, Sunny, Balthazar and even Vigga become the narrators of this tale. Only Balthazar and Baptiste are left out.
The Devils is a fun read, but it struggles in three ways.
First, the plot is too straightforward and repetitive for the vast bulk of the read. The journey from the Holy City to Troy and the various encounters with Eudoxia's sons along the way quickly starts to feel stale. While each of these is entertaining enough, it becomes predictable in a hurry. Our heroes face dire odds time and again, but invariably their various superpowers (resurrection, invisibility, summoning the dead, etc.) excise them from each pickle, a little worse for wear but mostly intact. There's no urgency, no real stakes. When you start to realize this, the tension evaporates. It starts to feel a bit like a game of Dungeons & Dragons, with repetitive player encounters designed to bang up the party but not kill anyone off too soon – though it rallies considerably in its final act, even if it never quite reaches the glorious level of politicking and betrayal we find in The First Law.
Then there is the humor. I have always loved Abercrombie's ability to infuse his fiction with comic relief. It's often subtle, a dry gallows humor that crops up just enough to keep things prickly without falling too far into camp. The Devils barrels headlong into campy, often overbearing jokiness, with too many catchphrases and one-liners repeated too often that never quite land the way Logen's do in The First Law, or Glokta's for that matter. I found myself preferring Baron Rikard to the other Devils, simply because we didn't spend as much time in his head. It feels wildly more juvenile than Abercrombie's other books, almost as if it's being written with an entirely different audience in mind rather than serious readers of genre fiction. Ironically, the constant attempts at humor here make it much less funny than his previous books. I hate to call anything cringe-inducing, but alas, much of The Devils is just that. Which is a shame, because much of it is also quite well-written and engaging.
These two issues bring us to our third. While I genuinely like the characters, and while each certainly has his or her distinct flare, they're universally underdeveloped. Sure, Balthazar is arrogant and full of himself and Jakob has a dark past and Vigga is horny and can't control her wolf persona, but I never feel as connected to any of these people as I was to Logen Ninefingers or the Dogman or Sand dan Glokta or Jezal dan Luthar or countless other characters from The First Law books. The Devils never slows down enough to really give us the opportunity to connect, and the humor starts to make a lot of the characters feel a bit one-note or boxed-in. They are caricatures, almost, or the bare bones of characters who never really blossom into anything beyond their stat blocks and super powers. Many felt weirdly derivative of characters from Abercrombie's earlier works.
None of this is to say that The Devils is a bad fantasy novel. It's a fun page-turner at times and Abercrombie gets as much right as he gets wrong. But The First Law's nine-book arc is a tough act to follow. And while this plays to some of his authorial strengths, it just as often leaves us thinking about how much better Abercrombie has been in the past. The prose veers between delightful and sloppy, the dialogue between sharp and repetitive, and Abercrombie continues to give us some of the most imaginative battles and descriptive language in the genre . . . before swerving into pithy observations and weird asides that make the writing feel oddly puerile. The entire thing is at once undercooked and trying too hard: at quippy humor, at crass edginess, at shock value. It's all far more tiresome than a swashbuckling adventure story like this ought to be.
Beyond all of this, something is missing here. I think it's a reason to really care about these characters and their fates in the first place, or the broader fate of the world they inhabit. Hopefully the next books in the series can convince me otherwise.
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

What Ever Happened to Video Game Maker Sega?
What Ever Happened to Video Game Maker Sega?

Yahoo

timean hour ago

  • Yahoo

What Ever Happened to Video Game Maker Sega?

K.K. Sega (Japanese: Kabushiki Sega), better known in Europe and the U.S. as Sega Corporation, was the third major provider of video games and consoles alongside Nintendo and Sony from the late 1970s to the late 1990s. However, the history of the now Japanese company actually began decades earlier, not in Japan, but in the U.S. Today, Sega is focusing on its own rich tradition, which is now set to be made future-proof. When Shuji Utsumi announced a renaissance of Sega at the Game Awards 2024 in Los Angeles, the joy among the brand's legions of fans was boundless. 'Gamers loved Sega because we showed them a new style, a new attitude, and a new lifestyle,' said the CEO of Sega America and Sega Europe. They have some great pillars, including 'Sonic,' 'Yakuza,' and 'Persona.' 'At the same time, we also have other titles that perfectly reflected Sega's style, attitude, and context. And I think players will love it if we do it right. It will be a challenge–expectations are high–but if we master this, we can become Sega again,' Utsumi promised. In fact, Sega's history goes back much further than 'just' to 'Sonic,' 'Yakuza,' 'Persona' (1990s), or even older iconic video games like 'Space Fury,' 'Monaco GP,' or 'Subroc.' A history that was extremely eventful, so much so that it is sometimes even described as 'confusing.' To do justice to each of these twists would probably require a book or at least a dissertation. Therefore, this text condenses the events, but all crucial facts are, of course, considered. Sega's Cradle Is in Hawaii Sega, as we know it today, originated from a company founded in 1940. But not, as one might expect, in Japan by Japanese people, but by three Americans: Martin Bromley, Irving Bromberg, and James Humpert. The trio laid the foundation for what would later become Sega in Honolulu, Hawaii, then still under the name Standard Games. The name already suggests that they saw a flourishing business field in leisure entertainment, which they wanted to serve with coin-operated machines. Initially, they had the U.S. soldiers stationed in Hawaii in mind. Eleven years later, in 1951, the company relocated to Tokyo, as the U.S. Congress had meanwhile banned the installation of slot machines on military bases. This decision is known in U.S. economic history as the 'Gambling Devices Transportation Act.' Entertainment for U.S. Soldiers Overseas At this time, the U.S. was at war with Korea, so the contingents of U.S. bases in the Pacific had been significantly increased. This also applied to Japan, which had been under U.S. occupation since the end of World War II. By the end of 1945, the U.S. had stationed more than 350,000 soldiers there, who represented another promising clientele for the three entrepreneurs. The GIs, far from home in a country whose language was completely foreign to them, were looking for entertainment. And Bromley and Co. wanted to offer their compatriots this with imported coin-operated machines. Additionally, traditionally oriented Japan was gradually opening up to the American way of life. Many renowned U.S. companies from all economic sectors were vying for this new market. The Japanese economy itself had also recognized the opportunities here, and many domestic companies were seeking foreign partners, primarily from the U.S. Thus, the vending machine operator Nihon Goraku Bussan, founded in 1951, entered into a partnership with Bromley just a year later, whose company had been called Service Games of Japan since the move to Japan. In 1960, they founded the subsidiary Japan Entertainment Trading Company, which soon became one of the largest providers of jukeboxes, slot machines, and vending machines. A Fourth American Lays the Foundation for Sega And another American entered the scene. David Rosen was a U.S. soldier stationed in Japan who decided to stay there after his service. Rosen had developed an appreciation for Japanese culture and, like Bromley, recognized the market opportunities. So, in 1954, he founded Rosen Enterprises, which initially sold photo booths but soon also imported used slot machines from the U.S. While the Japanese company received a license for U.S. military bases, the intended expansion to the entire Japanese market initially seemed hardly possible. Japan, in the midst of reconstruction, had a 6.5-day workweek. The Japanese Ministry of Trade considered distraction through slot machines counterproductive and denied Rosen the necessary license to install the machines. It wasn't until 1957 that he managed to convince the authorities that entertainment and economic growth were not mutually exclusive. Rosen believed that workers who could relax through entertainment in their limited free time would actually fuel the economic upswing. His argument was so convincing that he was eventually granted the license. And Rosen was proven right. The slot machine market was now booming, and Rosen Enterprises soon dominated the Japanese market. Both Rosen and Bromley recognized that a merger of the market leaders–Rosen Enterprises in slot machines, Nihon Goraku Bussan in jukeboxes–would benefit both companies. Read also: Most Valuable Video Game Sold for $2 Million The Modern Sega Emerges Initially, the plan was to operate under the name Rosen Enterprise. After all, it was Rosen who held the necessary license. However, the former GI had enough sense and heart to realize that this would have further hurt the Japanese spirit, already deeply wounded by the devastating consequences of World War II. Therefore, they decided on the name Sega Enterprises Ltd., based on the initials of Service Games. Thus began the actual history of Sega in July 1965. Now that the company also had production facilities, they began developing their own machines. The first hit the market in 1966, called 'Periscope,' and was based on the idea behind the game known to us as 'Battleship.' 'Periscope' became an international success, which in turn attracted the attention of the U.S. company Gulf and Western. For three years, the Americans courted Sega, and in 1969, the acquisition finally took place. Sega was now a 100% Gulf and Western subsidiary but was able to retain both its name and logo, as well as Rosen as the chairman of the board. In 1983, Sega Also Entered the Console Market In the following years, Sega continued to grow steadily–including through the acquisition of the U.S. competitor Gremlin–and regularly released more arcade games. These included titles like 'Space Attack,' 'Monaco GP,' 'Eliminator,' 'Pulsar,' and 'Frogger.' All these games were well thought out and executed, giving Sega a reputation as a provider of high-quality games. According to 'Historycorner,' 'Space Fury' was 'the first arcade game to offer colored vector graphics and voice synthesis. The player controlled a spaceship and had to fend off attacks from enemy ships. The spoken announcements, such as 'Prepare for battle!' had an almost hypnotic appeal. And the 1982 follow-up 'Subroc' gave Sega a unique selling point, as it was the first commercial video game in stereoscopic 3D format. Around the same time, Sega responded to a new trend that had begun in the early 1980s and was growing. Companies like Atari had already celebrated initial successes with game consoles. Sega now picked up on this trend and developed versions of its most successful arcade games for the most common game consoles. And it wasn't long before Sega itself appeared on the market with a console. SG-1000, Sega's First Own Game Console On July 15, 1983, Sega introduced its first own game console, the SG-1000. However, it had to compete on the very same day with the 'Nintendo Entertainment System' released by Nintendo–better known as NES. The SG-1000 was not destined for great success, partly due to the strong competition and partly due to the high price Sega demanded in markets outside Japan. Additionally, 1983 saw the preliminary collapse of the video game industry, known as the 'Video Game Crash.' As a result, numerous companies, including the former market leader Atari, Inc., went bankrupt. This development was only halted in 1985 when Nintendo's NES console and the now legendary game 'Super Mario Bros.' also appeared on the American market and became major sales hits there. Read also: Why the 'Power Glove' for the NES Flopped 35 Years Ago Back to the Roots Such successes were only partially granted to the consoles that followed the SG-1000. Successors like the 'Sega Mega Drive' or later 'Sega Saturn' sold excellently, so much so that Sega dominated the North American and thus the world's most important gaming market in early 1994. But the 'Mega Drive' was already six years old at that point and had long reached its expiration date. Sega's attempts to modernize the console were not well received by fans. As a result, the company lost more than 30% market share within twelve months. This was not least due to the successor, the 'Sega Saturn.' While it initially sold brilliantly, it had to account for its enormous technical complexity. Sega simply had too few games available that were compatible with the console. However, this was far from the peak of the disaster. In the 1999/2000 fiscal year, Sega had to report a loss of $400 million. This was only partly due to the 'Sega Saturn' successor introduced at the end of 1998, the Dreamcast console. Rather, it was the imbalance between revenue and the excessively high development and production costs that had brought Sega to the brink of collapse. They simply failed to offer something competitive against the likes of Sony's 'PlayStation' and Nintendo's 'GameCube.' Mega Drive Is Today Sega's Best-Known Console Thus, in the top 20 best-selling game consoles to date, only one Sega model, the 'Sega Mega Drive,' is found, and it ranks just 19th. No wonder, then, that they exited the game console market as early as 2004. In the same year, they merged with the Sammy Corporation, then the leading manufacturer of 'Pachinko' machines, to form Sega Sammy Holdings. A 'Pachinko' is a gambling machine similar to a 'pinball' machine but with an automatic payout like a slot machine. Sega now focused exclusively on developing and producing games for the various platforms of the competition. Thanks to the aforementioned merger, the company was able to report a 31% increase in profit to $577 million as early as 2006. Consequently, this focus has hardly changed to this day and will not change in the future. There will definitely be no more Sega consoles, Utsumi confirmed. Instead, they will invest in their own classics like 'Golden Axe,' 'Virtua Fighter,' or 'Jet Set Radio.' 'We will introduce these games to a new audience rather than just treating them as museum pieces,' said the CEO of Sega America and Sega Europe. Sega's iconic legacy is to be made future-proof. So, we can look forward to it. The post What Ever Happened to Video Game Maker Sega? appeared first on TECHBOOK.

Just For Laughs: Gianmarco Soresi's sharpest tool? Knowing exactly how to ask impolite questions
Just For Laughs: Gianmarco Soresi's sharpest tool? Knowing exactly how to ask impolite questions

Yahoo

timean hour ago

  • Yahoo

Just For Laughs: Gianmarco Soresi's sharpest tool? Knowing exactly how to ask impolite questions

Having just been recognized among Variety's "10 Comics to Watch," ​Gianmarco Soresi is one of the most brilliant comedians in the industry, and among the must-see talents at the Just For Laughs comedy festival in Montreal. While we can attest to how incredibly skilled Soresi is at crafting his material, his crowd work is a highlight, which you can also see in several videos on social media. "Sometimes people say, 'Oh he never misses.' And I'm like, I don't caption the misses. But god, it's hard," Soresi told Yahoo Canada. "Sometimes I feel like I get lucky. I just know how to continue a conversation and come with a point of view." "I try to think of asking the questions that are impolite to ask, the ones that you want to, but it's like, well that's insane. I think with comedy, you're in a safe space of like, I can say the, 'why does this suck?' Or, 'how did they die?' And just go into the weeds. ... I have a bit that talks about the registered sex offender registry, and turns out a lot of countries don't have one, and if you start asking about that, you can just go from there. I just try to push myself to ask beyond the regular questions. As Soresi continues to tour around the world, including shows in Europe ahead of Montreal, he's realized that many American comedy elements land internationally. "It is advantageous to be an American comedian. I have a joke that is a riff about RFK Jr, and does he get the exact same response as in America? No. But the fact that it can work in Barcelona is insane," Soresi said. "It's insane because I can't tell you anything about Spain. I just found out they still have a King." But Canadian audiences may expect a few U.S. jabs during his Montreal shows. "I have a lot of negative feelings towards my country right now, and Canada is more than happy to hear them," Soresi said. Soresi is also an absolute expert at comedy about his family. It's something several comedian do, not not everyone can do so with as much success as Soresi, approaching it with a specificity that helps his audience connect even more with his comedy. "You'll be surprised how many people relate to it, even if their scenario isn't exactly the same," Soresi said. "I certainly fudge details of who said what, because I have a former stepfather, I have a former stepmother, I have half siblings, they're on different sides. It can be challenging. You have to kind of find the specifics within it without overwhelming people." "I think one of the benefits I have is my father doesn't really watch my stand-up, and certainly doesn't fully comprehend it if he does. My mom doesn't mind me being mean, and none of my siblings care, and my former stepfather, so I've never been told not to say something. ... I do get to talk about, especially my father, in a way that anyone who has a more functional relationship would go, I couldn't possibly express that feeling or articulate that. And I consider that one of he elements that I have as a stand-up that's very beneficial to writing material." 'I'm lucky to have the autonomy' While Canadians should be incredibly excited about Soresi coming to Montreal, he's really harnessed the internet, podcast, social media to make his material accessible internationally. "It's my bread and butter," Soresi said. "I think there was a time that I wouldn't be able to do what I do internationally until I was like a megastar, until it was like big theatres, ... but it's definitely at a scale where I can go to a comedy club [in Europe] and enough people know me from the internet and they're excited to see me." "But in another way, it allows me to feed into my ADHD, where if there's something I really want to talk about right now, or something super topical that's going to go away tomorrow, I can make that joke and put it out there in my own capacity. In a way that, ... if I was a recurring guest on The Daily Show I could have. That's when I could have made my jokes about Grok and Elon Musk. But especially these days, the news cycle moves so quickly, so does comedy have to, and building a platform lets me kind of get those thoughts out, and in a business sense, it gives me more product to sell." The comedian added that he also thinks his social media popularity has established him as a "character" for people, which can be a "double-edged sword." "Someone will, in the audience, say like, 'Let me see your elbows,' which is a reference to the viral crowd work clip. I can't help but think the other half of the audience that goes, 'What the f—k are they talking about right now?'" Soresi said. "There's a little bit that you have to navigate, for sure, but I'm lucky to have the autonomy. I'm lucky to get to post what I want. I'm lucky that if I release a comedy special, I also have 100 clips out of it that I can use and just continue to sell shows."

Atletico cash in on Real Madrid's Bernabeu concert woes
Atletico cash in on Real Madrid's Bernabeu concert woes

Yahoo

timean hour ago

  • Yahoo

Atletico cash in on Real Madrid's Bernabeu concert woes

Mired in legal setbacks, Real Madrid are losing the lucrative star-studded concerts for which their costly Bernabeu stadium revamp was designed -- and cross-town rivals Atletico are cashing in. The megaproject involved three loans totalling more than one billion euros ($1.174 billion) with the goal of transforming the historic ground into a year-round entertainment hub. But the Spanish giants had not reckoned with the determination of angry locals, whose complaints about excessive noise succeeded in stopping the concerts in 2024. With the complaints bogged down in the courts, Atletico Madrid's Metropolitano stadium snapped up the shows of three Spanish stars who were due to perform at the Bernabeu this summer. A bigger coup followed: the announcement of the hosting of 10 gigs next year by reggaeton superstar Bad Bunny, a multiple Grammy Awards winner who sold a Spanish record 600,000 tickets for 12 dates in Madrid and Barcelona. The Puerto Rican's arrival appears to contradict the belief of Madrid's Atletico-supporting mayor Jose Luis Martinez-Almeida, who insisted only the Bernabeu could attract the most prestigious performers like US icon Taylor Swift. For Placido Rodriguez Guerrero, emeritus professor at the University of Oviedo's economics department, "the reputational damage has been big" for Real. "It is a way of showing that not everything Real Madrid do is done well, and more so if the concerts go to the Metropolitano", he told AFP. Lola Indigo, one of the singers whose cancelled Bernabeu show went to the Metropolitano, told El Mundo daily she felt "disappointment, a little betrayed". - 'Major blow' - Club president Florentino Perez has reassured supporters that concerts only represent one percent of Real's budget, with revenues topping 1.1 billion euros in the 2024/25 season. But David Dunn, managing director of the Edinburgh-based consultancy 442 Design, which has worked on commercial projects with clubs including Arsenal and AC Milan, described the situation as "a major blow" for Real. Although the matchday, tour and retail business revenue is "excellent", the club "will have banked on being able to hold multiple large-scale events and concerts", he told AFP. Business Insider Spain has reported Real's plan was to generate around 100 million euros per year from musical events -- enough to sign a couple of stars. Professor Rodriguez Guerrero said Real were losing "tens of millions of euros" this summer to their less storied local rivals, who have previously hosted stars including Bruce Springsteen, the Rolling Stones and Bruno Mars. If Real wish to pursue their concert ambitions, the investment "will cost quite a lot", he said. - Solution 'not simple' - For Francesc Daumal, an architecture expert at Barcelona's Polytechnic University of Catalonia, the Bernabeu's main weakness is its new retractable roof and the acoustic issues it engenders. The stadium "is like a tent, because it's shut with a light closure. There are openings, exterior sheets that let air in", he explained. "Solving the insulation for those deep frequencies and with those very high acoustic pressures isn't simple," warned Daumal. Atletico's stadium "was born from the start with the intention of soundproofing it", whereas adapting the older Bernabeu is more difficult, he added. Daumal also identified the Bernabeu's proximity to residential buildings as a challenge to contain noise, compared with the esplanade that separates the Metropolitano from its closest neighbours. Atletico are meanwhile cashing in on a packed summer concert schedule with the Bernabeu out of action. Fans flocked to the Metropolitano in May for two sold-out nights by British star Ed Sheeran, with 140,000 tickets going at an average price of 100 euros ($115). Sara, who attended last year's Taylor Swift concert at the Bernabeu, told AFP the Metropolitano was "better as a place... it's a club with more ties to music". "Acoustically, the Bernabeu is the worst place we've seen," added the 34-year-old communications sector employee, who declined to give her surname. Ariel Jackson, a 30-year-old lawyer from the Caribbean nation of Trinidad and Tobago, said the Metropolitano had "extra space" and was "more comfortable" than the Bernabeu thanks to its distance from the crowded city centre. "We love to say concerts are held" at the Metropolitano amid the Bernabeu's troubles, enthused Atletico fan David Guerrero, 27, sporting a club shirt with Sheeran's name on the back. imm/ds/CHZ/nf

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store