FC Barcelona: Més que un club

Hello all,

Tonight may have been one of the greatest nights of my life. We got to go to an FC Barcelona futbol game.  For those of you who don’t follow soccer much, Barcelona is probably the best team in the world right now.  In 2009 they won the Supercopa de Espana, Supercopa de Europa, FIFA Club World Cup, Spanish La Liga, UEFA Champions League and the Copa del Rey, the first team to ever achieve the “sextuplet.”  They played Getafe (wiki), who is a “D” rated team from Madrid.  When we got there to pick up our tickets from CEA we assumed that there would be like a big CEA section but evidently they couldn’t buy tickets like that so our seats were all over the place, but this didn’t prove to be a problem because when we got there Lindsay, Mackenzie and I all just sat together anyway and no one bothered us.

The stadium (Camp Nou) was incredible.  It holds 98,000 people and even on a night like tonight when we played a no one team there were still 75,000 people there almost.  It was relatively quiet during the game which surprised me.  The fans sang a FCB Song at the beginning of the game and that was amazing because you could hear all 75,000 people singing the same song and cheering for Barça, but the rest of the game the cheers and songs were more secluded to sections rather than the whole stadium.  We were up at the very top, but when you are at an FCB game it really doesn’t matter where you are sitting.  You can see that they are phenomenal from the top just as well as from front and center.

Earlier today we decided that we wanted to have something to wear to the game so we went to La Rambla to find a shirt, jersey, scarf or something.  We ended up getting these jersey type shirts which are actually really cute and I really like and they were like 15 euro so not too outlandish.  So today was a beautiful day and so warm so we decided to wear long sleeve shirts and then our new shirts on top thinking that this would be enough.  Plus, we didn’t want to wear a jacket and cover up the nice jersey that we just bought!  So we finally get to the stadium and find our seats and the wind is blowing so hard it was crazy and it was FREEZING!  I couldn’t believe how cold it was just because of the wind.  I know, as a Wyoming patron I should be used to this but I just keep thinking “I am in Barcelona on the beach.  It must be warm if we are so close to the beach.”  Well this is false!  Everyone else had hats and scarves and gloves, but not the three of us.  We each had one a long sleeve shirt and we would have looked cute at least, but they gave us a newspaper with game news in it when we walked in so the three of us ended up using these as blankets (quite like bums).  So, had we not had newspaper covering out bodies, I am sure that our new shirts would have looked very nice!

Despite the cold, however, this was the most incredible thing ever.  They were so graceful and agile and fast!  FCB scored their first game in the 6th minute of the game and it was incredible.  There had been like 3 shots on goal before this and they were all really good and very close so when the shot finally went in everyone went crazy!  The rest of the first half went without a score but some really amazing plays and moves.  FCB scored again nearing the end of the second half and then with only about a minute left to play there was a card (foul) in the box and Getafe got a PK (penalty kick for my non-soccer following readers).  So the penalty kick scored Getafe a goal, but FCB still won by a goal.  It was so amazing and I can’t wait to post some of my own pictures.  I am going to try to go to another game at the end of the month I believe.

Hasta Luego,

Shannon