Life in Barcelona

I was looking forward to seeing the biggest match of the year for months now! Barça – Real Madrid WHOW! Every year I have followed the battle of the year closely in the Netherlands but this time I was incredibly privileged to be in Barcelona when the match was played. I was planning to see the match in one of the numerous international Bars in the city centre of Barcelona since a friend I got to meet here in Barcelona told me that it was impossible to get tickets (if you don’t have a season card). He has lived here all his life and he couldn’t manage to get tickets for a single match.

This weekend my parents came over and they gave me the biggest surprise ever! I GOT TICKETS FOR THE BARÇA –REAL MADRID MATCH. I think that all football fans can imagine how I felt, it’s hard to describe but I guess it’s something like winning the lottery (at least for football fans)!

On the big day we arrived quite early in order to make sure that everything went smoothly. Also of course to enjoy the anticipatory pleasure and to experience the vibe and madness of the event for as long as possible. When we arrived at our section of the stand we found out that we had great seats just behind the goal on the first row.

When the game started everyone went mad and started cheering and shouting for Barça. Full of adrenaline and excitement I started shouting along following the words that the fanatic supporters sang. I had been to a couple of matches before but believe me the atmosphere was nothing compared to this! It was kind of ‘á la Liverpool’, maybe they got the idea from the English supporters visiting Barcelona or it just highlights the massive rivalry these two teams feel for each other, it certainly was great to experience.

The game started of quite bad for Barça with Van the Man (van Nisletrooy) opening the score early in the game. Luckily there was Messi who played an amazing game and made the equalizer for the “blaugrana” as they call them in Catalunya. At this time, above the joy the crowd expressed by singing and shouting I heard fireworks from outside the stadium and saw rockets lighting up the sky in beautiful colours.

After Oleguer made a foul in the box van Nistelrooy scored his second goal, and Real was leading again. Then there was Messi again after a good attempt by Ronni, Messi kicked the ball hard into the roof of the goal, immediately I got a shot of adrenaline again and I felt like part of the club with my Barça scarf and shirt on.

The turning point of the match was the stupid and unnecessary foul by Oleguer for which he got his second yellow card, and he got send off just before half time. Barça started the second leg with 10 players against the 11 of Madrid. Because of this Real was dominating the game, which lead to some big chances which Barça thankfully survived. The goal unfortunately was inevitable; out of a free kick from Guti the Madrilène International Sergio Ramos headed the ball over Valdes into the goal.

The stadium was silenced and the disappointment was obvious, since everyone realized that it was ‘almost’ impossible for Barça with 10 against 11 to score. People started drifting out and shouting to the ‘enemies of Madrid’. I was just very disappointed at this time, but then there was Messi again, almost in injury time he pulled it off to make a hat-trick in a totally packed Camp Nou against Madrid. His goal caused an explosion of excitement and everyone sang his name while bowing towards the field.

To be at the Barça – Madrid game and to have really good seats was great, but to see 6 goals in a totally packed Camp Nou for this spectacle was indescribable. What a wonderful game it turned out to be, and Barça are still top of the table!!

/Kevin 

This entry was posted on Monday, March 12th, 2007 at 3:26 pm and is filed under General Barcelona, Other, Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.