This is an account of my trip to the final la liga game of the season in 2015 to sunny Barcelona. This was originally published by me to my company blog. This was also the year when Barca won the treble.
Hola amigos! Here's another match day blog from me. This is a write-up on my recent trip to one of the Meccas of Club football- the Camp Nou. Although I'm not a Barca fan, I was there for the game between Champions FCB and relegation battling Deportivo La Coruna on the 23rd of May 2015. I have tried to provide some travel tips if someone is interested. Although the game itself did not spice-up until Deportivo suddenly realised that they will be relegated unless they get a point, the game will be remembered as Xavi's last game at the Camp Nou (although I realised only once the banners came out)!
If you were to visit a stadium for the last game of the season, where would you go? I would go to Old Trafford! But I didn't. I went to Barcelona. I still do not know why I decided to go there! By the time I bought the game tickets, Barcelona were already crowned champions after their exploits at the Caulderon and I probably assumed that the mood in Madrid would be gloomy. While that was still true, CR7 and company put 7 past Getafe in a 10 goal thriller on the final day in Madrid! How disappointing! Not at all. It's early summer and Barcelona has a beach - what else do you need! Although I got there for footballing reasons, this amazing city definitely captured my imaginations. I have been to quite a few cities and this was probably the best experience. I have to accept that I'm so glad that I actually chose Barcelona over Madrid. In any case neither MSN nor BBC were going to appear bigger than Antmen!
An early morning flight from chilly Helsinki (It's still around 20 degrees here and can go down to 12 degrees. Although the local people are already out in beachwear!) to sunny Barcelona (man, wasn't it hot!) with half a day to go for the game, I arrived in Terminal 1 with one hour of my life recovered due to time zone changes (of course I would lose it the next night). A "guapa chica" sold me a SIM card as I was about to leave the "aeroporto" but there were no other surprises (The SIM card was useful. Seriously!). The following lines may feel like a TripAdvisor review but can't help - The public transport is so good in Barcelona and the airport bus provides the perfect start. It might sound funny - although I live in Helsinki, I used taxi to travel to and from the Helsinki airport while I entirely used public transport in Barcelona! To get to the City centre (Placa de Catalunya), you need to board the A1 bus if leaving from Terminal 1 and T2 if leaving Terminal 2. The buses leave every 5 minutes during the day time and there is no need to hurry (unless of course you are a lazy person and have messed up things). It's the same for the return. It's also pretty cheap, I think! This one's definitely giving nightmares to the Taxi guys in the Catalan capital. The Metro connects to most of the tourist spots. Unlike Finland, the sign boards in public transport like Metros and Metro stations are also in English along with Catalan and Spanish!
First on my agenda was to visit a bicycle tour shop nearby the Diagonal metro station (there is also a Paral-lel station. Not sure what happened there). I was going for a multinational (if we can call it so) bike trip through the streets of Barcelona on some of the coolest beach bikes with a cool and informative Dutch guide along with a Colombian guy (He wanted to get to the game as well and was there at the Caulderon for matchday 37. No, I did not complain about Falcao!), two German ladies, and a mother and daughter duo from some other country. I had 90 minutes to get there. Although the person at service desk insisted that I take a taxi, I conveniently ignored the advice and took an L3 metro from Catalunya station. I was proved right! More info coming up - there is something called the "Hola BCN" Card. You can buy cards valid for 2 days, 3 days, etc. This can be used in all inter-city transport vehicles like buses and metros. This doesn't apply to the airport bus. The bike tour turned out to be a very memorable experience since it involved people from diverse culture. Our guide showed us most of the popular places in the city and she also had some stories (Most of them involving Dragons and a guy called Jordi. Although the guide was blonde, she did not resemble Daenerys 😌) to share. The trip covered the Barceloneta beach and a refreshment session involving "Sangria", a Catalan drink! I totally recommend this kind of trip if you're going "soltero". The pictures from the city itself are at the end. Below are some pictures I took outside the stadium entrance.
Well it was a dream start! The day got better with some great "Tapas" (A kind of local food. I wasn't looking for dal-chawal!) at a nearby restaurant in Gracia (Suggested by the bike people. Don't I love them!). As my Spanish is "mal" to say the least, I was lucky enough to find a Pakistani waiter at the restaurant. With the trip to Camp Nou still to come, this was already a fantastic day. I was on my way to the house I booked for the night which was at a walkable distance from Camp Nou! Something that I took note during the trip so far was the fact that the people seem to be quite open about their political stance. Not surprisingly for many of you, they want to separate from Spain. You can see the yellow and red striped flags flying everywhere with the one outside El Born being prominent. As our guide mentioned, the ones with a star are the ones who want a separate nation and you could hardly find a house without one such flag! It seems there was a voting within Catalunya in which a clear majority wanted separate country. But this was nominal as the government in Madrid did not recognise this.
I reached Camp Nou at 1730 CEST, an hour ahead of the kick-off. It was a pretty crowded place with duplicate shirts being sold outside. The complex is quite intimidating from the outside, but definitely more so from the inside. A capacity of nearly a 100 thousand - it was big, very big. There were large, coloured cards on the seats. Mine was blue. No prizes for guessing - that massive 'CAMPIONS!' sign was created using those cards. I was one of the contributors, although not for the aplhabets! Below are the images of that one. The instructions were pretty clear although not religiously followed.
It was pretty sunny and I actually struggled to sit there with the Sun positioned directly overhead. I have to say that it was very disturbing. Calling the atmosphere electric would be an overstatement! Even during the game, there were no songs sung (contrary to what happened in Westfalenstadion) except for some drums and a chant of "Barca". Once in a while they took the name of "Xavi" and "Luis Enrique". Since Barca were already Champions, the fans seemed very relaxed. A handful (I don't think there were more!) of Deportivo fans were trying to make some noise of their own. If Eibar win and Deportivo lose, those fans would be in tears at the end of the night! A few tourists were getting their pictures taken. A local guy who looked like Pedro took mine with "Numero ocho" on my back ;-) The Barca anthem was sung and the "CAMPIONS!" design materialized. The hashtag #6RACIESXAVI was popular in Twitter a few weeks ago. This was visible on the sidelines of the pitch. "6RACIES" is actially "Gracies" (of course, he's number 6), which is "Thanks" in Catalan! Once the big "Xavi" banner came down, we were good to go. I guess most people want to see Messi score and the guy rarely disappoints (the CL final being one such blue moon day). Within 5 minutes, I had seen a Messi goal at Camp Nou. An early goal from Messi meant that the hosts were in control and barring a miracle from Cordoba, Deportivo were staring down the barrel! Apart from the goal, Messi wasn't involved too much. I thought that Rafinha and Neymar were highly involved in that first half while Mathieu was annoying to say the least. I still can't believe that the French guy scored against City! The game got boring after the first goal and the score remained the same at the interval. Some pictures below.
The half time score in Eibar was 3-0 and the miracle was not coming for the team from A Coruna. It looked like Deportivo realized that they need to do it themselves, came out and conceded within 15 minutes to the same man! My second Messi goal!! To be fair, Neymar should've scored himself as he was in on goal. It was almost as if the Barca fans in the stadium forced Neymar to put it on the plate for Messi to score. They don't care about any one else but Messi (after all, he needs to stay in touch with Ronaldo)! The Pedro lookalike near me shouted "Messi Messi" as I was expecting Neymar to fire and it felt like another 99900 in the stadium did the same!
Alright then! An hour gone, 2-0 at the Camp Nou - looks like the perfect home farewell for the midfield maestro, right? Wrong! Goal of the game by Lucas and then an unconvincing finish from Diogo Salomao meant that Senor Hernandez would be part of another farewell gone wrong. Well, this has been a season of horrible farewells. While Liverpool will definitely take home the Gold medal, Dortmund were not going to be left behind - thanks to De Bruyne and company! At least, Xavi won the treble and was actually on the field when another midfield maestro was in tears, two weeks later in Berlin. Speaking of tears, Xavi actually shed tears during his farewell speech, none of the words of which I could understand! After watching Messi score, I had now witnessed Xavi's cry! There were more reasons to cry as "numero ocho" Iniesta came on for the man of the moment, Xavi. With 4 minutes to go, I had seen my favourite Barca player play at Camp Nou. But even he couldn't change the destiny of this game. While Deportivo fans went crazy on my left, I seemed to be the only one applauding the Deportivo goal in the Barcelona gallery. I was wise enough to not do that for the second goal! But, I was definitely the most content person in that gallery! So, I had watched two games in different stadiums and no home team had won! But this one was definitely pleasing. While the game had to be remembered as Xavi's last game, I would remember it by the happiness of Deportivo's players and fans (I don't think a lot of Barca fans realised what had happened there having been crowned champions) having survived relegation.
It was party time in the Camp Nou! A lot of crackers burnt, victory chants sung, victory laps run, group photos taken, what not! A tearful speech by Xavi was followed by a rather unexpectedly joyful one by Iniesta who declared that winning the league is no big deal, and Copa Del Rey as well as the Champions League had to be won. Those words seemed to be a writing on the wall at the time and two weeks later were a reality to no one's surprise. Luis Enrique made a speech of his own (I seriously have no idea about that one). Although I'm not very fond of Barcelona, I have admired the way Luis Enrique has made them play this season. Their game has been much more direct and the defensive aspect seems to be much more improved. Messi has produced some unbelieveably great moments this season and for the first time I had to accept that he is probably the best to have played the beautiful game! Some less perfect players like Rakitic and Suarez (none of whom featured in this game) have made the team more complete! The club seemed to be heading for a crisis after the 3-1 loss at the Bernabeu back in October. But, to go and win the treble from there has to be called remarkable. To say that, being there on the last day of the league season, during a history making season by the best team in Europe was a privilege, would be an understatement! But yeah, I would still prefer United against Bristol Rovers at Old Trafford 😉
As promised, some pictures from the City tour!
Barceloneta beach below.
Outside El Born
This is another marvellous creation by Gaudi. A lot of dragons here.
Near Picasso Museo
The Sagrada Familia Church: A very intimidating church. Big, very big! Makes searching lot easier.
