JOINTLY CELEBRATING A significant birthday this year, a group of us headed for Barcelona to mark the approach of middle-aged manhood. It was my first visit to the city; I could never previously persuade my wife to go, as she suspected, quite rightly, that it would turn into a “bloody big football weekend”.
With recalcitrant wives not an issue, a Barcelona game became the centrepiece of the weekend, so we sourced tickets for their La Liga meeting with Villarreal on Saturday last.
Going to the Camp Nou feels like a pilgrimage for any football fan, and the miraculous visions of the current Messi era only intensify the fervour. It was important, too, to get to see them in the flesh now, while Messi still reigns. Reports of their demise may be greatly exaggerated, but there’s no question that Barcelona are not what they were.
Despite sitting fifth in La Liga, Villarreal looked a limited outfit, yet every time they mustered a counter-attack the panic-stricken Barça defence ran around like their hair was on fire. Sergio Busquets, as if in an amnesiac daze, kept passing the ball straight to the nearest opponent. And Ivan Rakitic is many things, but sadly, Xavi is not one of them.
Once they’d shaken off Villarreal’s dogged early resistance, however, Messi, Suarez and Neymar put on a show. Each scored, and each provided a flourish: Messi a ‘Panenka’ penalty, in the buildup to which Neymar had flicked the ball audaciously through a inches-wide gap between defender and byline. Suarez had already contributed a zig-zagging run and drive for the third goal.
So, ‘El Cant del Barça’ ringing in our ears – Barça! Barça! Baaaaaarça! – we went happily on our way. Not that it was the last we’d see of MSN. The trio’s omnipresence in the souvenir shops of Barcelona underlines how much the football team represents the city, even one with such a rich historical and cultural background. The Barça jersey is front and centre, the Sagrada Familia fridge magnets shoved to the side. Messi is bigger than Gaudí; the Camp Nou the real cathedral.
Another reminder of how the club intertwines the sporting and the social came earlier that day. Unbeknownst to us as we supped Estrella Damm outside the stadium, Barça had just announced its support for plans to hold a referendum on Catalan independence in September this year. Synonymous with Catalan indentity, the club’s backing is key for the National Pact for the Referendum, which aims to persuade the Spanish government to allow such a vote to be binding, unlike the previous version in 2014.
Barça is careful to stay above the fray in the independence debate – they are endorsing the right to a vote, not necessarily independence itself – and it’s easy to see why.
Most big football clubs now attract a large tourist element, but in a city already attractive to visitors FC Barcelona seems especially laden down. Scottish stag parties, snap-happy Koreans, Arabs flown in by club sponsor Qatar Airways – all came to worship last Saturday. The Camp Nou retains its flavour and identity but there’s also the sense of the stadium as much tourist attraction as football ground.
So the club’s internationalism in a globalised age makes striking the right tone with Catalonia’s independence movement tricky. On one hand there is the support for a referendum, the flying of Catalan flags in breach of UEFA rules and the primacy of the regional language.
On the other is a sense that the club is – whisper it – bigger than Catalonia. El Cant del Barça includes the lines “We’re the blue and claret supporters, it matters not where we hail from.” When it comes to flags, the Blaugrana supersedes the Estelada (the banner of Catalan separatism).
This view allows the club to be inclusive to the many within Catalonia and elsewhere in Spain who do not support independence, and to those millions around the world oblivious to the Catalan debate. It also means it doesn’t have to confront the practicalities of what independence would mean for its position in La Liga.
In reality, the strength of FC Barcelona’s commitment to the Catalan cause waxes and wanes along with supporter sentiment and political expediency. One fan group, Blaugrana Al Vent called for the practice of flying Catalan flags to stopped, regarding it as offensive to those not interested in secession from Spain. Yet the current regime, under club president Josep Maria Bartomeu, has been criticised for being too watery on independence by his bitter rival, former president Joan Laporta.
In advance of regional elections in 2015 Bartomeu said “Barca have always remained neutral”, yet the club were criticised in Madrid for tweeting their congratulations to new pro-independence Catalan president Carles Puigdemont.
Under Bartomeu, the emphasis has been more on Barça looking outward, establishing the club as a lucrative worldwide sporting juggernaut, than inward to its role as a beacon of Catalan identity. Més que un club – more than a club – used to refer to this special cultural position; now it describes the global brand Barça has become. Like all the superclubs, the bigger they get, the further they move from what made them special.
But as a possible September referendum draws closer, Barça may be called on to take a firmer position, challenging it to continue the range of its appeal from Catalan nationalists to those for whom it represents just an excuse for a bloody big football weekend.
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