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At
o
Mundet, use the Passeig Vall d’Hebron (Muntanya) exit. Walk up the
main road against the traffic flow for one minute and turn left into the car park
and grounds of the Velòdrom – the park entrance is immediately behind the
cycle stadium, up the green slope.
Camp Nou and FC Barcelona
Within the city’s Les Corts area, behind the university buildings, the magnifi-
cent
Camp Nou
football stadium will be high on the visiting list of any
sports fan. It’s no exaggeration to say that football in Barcelona is a genuine
obsession, with support for the local giants
FC (Futbol Club) Barcelona
raised to an art form.“More than just a club” is the proud boast, and certainly
during the dictatorship years the club stood as a Catalan symbol around
which people could rally. Arch-rivals, Real Madrid, on the other hand, were
always seen as Franco’s club. Moreover, unlike any other professional team, the
famous “blaugrana” (claret and blue) shirts remained unsullied by sponsors’
names for a century – until, in a typically Catalan statement of intent, the
Unicef logo was chosen.
The team – European champions in 1992 and 2006, home to the great names
of Cruyff, Maradona, Stoichkof, Lineker and Ronaldinho – plays at the magnif-
icent Camp Nou stadium. This was built in 1957, and enlarged for the 1982
It’s only a game?
Some people believe football is a matter of life or death . . . I can assure you it
is much, much more important than that.
Bill Shankly
There isn’t a Catalan football supporter who wouldn’t agree with Liverpool legend
and quip-meister Bill Shankly. These are fans who routinely boo their own team if
they think the performance isn’t up to scratch, thousands of white handkerchiefs
waving along in disapproval. A disappointing season is seen as a slur on the Catalan
nation, and if success goes instead to bitter rivals Real Madrid, then the pain is
almost too much to bear. When team figurehead and captain
Luis Figo
was trans-
ferred to Madrid in 2000 (one of only a handful to have played for both clubs), the
outrage was almost comical in its ferocity – at a later match between the two sides,
a pig’s head was thrown onto the pitch as Figo prepared to take a corner. Recent
seasons have been testing for the fans, to say the least. Having finally wrestled the
initiative back from the “Galacticos” of Real Madrid (Ronaldo, Zidane, Beckham, et
al), and winning the Spanish league in 2005 and 2006, and the European Champions
League in 2006, Barça – under Dutch coach Frank Rijkaard – imploded. From being
the most exciting in Spain, featuring international superstars like
Ronaldinho
and
Samuel Eto’o
and the new Argentinian wonder-kid
Lionel Messi
, the team became
– well, only the second most exciting in Barcelona, after Espanyol, as player tensions
erupted and the team lost ground again to Real Madrid, who won the league in both
2007 and 2008. An end-of-season 4-1 drubbing by the
madrileños
was the last
straw, and Rijkaard lost his job in favour of former Barça player, B-team coach and
all-Catalan hero,
Pep Guardiola
. Interesting times are promised, but whether there
will be more boos and white hankies along the way depends on the swagger of the
team and the mood of the crowd.
THE NORTHERN SUBURBS
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Camp Nou and FC Barcelona