Heading towards Barco Latino , a tapas joint permanently anchored along London’s Temple Pier , for the live broadcast coverage of the FC Barcelona-Real Madrid on Saturday afternoon, I had to navigate my way through a large pro-Palestine and pro-ceasefire demonstration on both sides of the Embankment.
An estimated 100,000 spending their weekend passionately taking sides on an issue of life and death, contrasting with my own indulgent escape into the world of sport, troubled my conscience and somewhat defused any excitement I felt about the upcoming football match .
I walked on however to a pre-ordained overdue reunion with fellow Barca fans , and soon found myself submerged in a very non-political multinational and multi-ethnic gathering hosted by FC Barcelona’s enduring active London Penya or fan club, among the most popular of the many that the club has around the world.
The legendary status of the Barca-Real Madrid rivalry has been struggling to retain its excitement and competitiveness since the exit of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo from Spanish league football.
However the two teams have several decent players between them, are still the best in La Liga , have a fighting chance of going far in the European Champions League, and the Penya Blaugrana London was guaranteed a sell-out attendance courtesy despite live broadcasting restrictions in the UK .
The game was shifted to the afternoon from its usual evening slot because Barca has an early fixture next week in the Champions League.And yet the Penya had managed to get round the English ban , that seeks to protect live stadium attendances , on live broadcast coverage of home and foreign games kicking off on Saturdays at 3pm . Several TV screens on deck and below deck broadcast El Clasico in Spanish , courtesy of DAZN the international streaming service .
As things turned out, the commentary build-up to kick-off was not so much about the match itself but about FC Barcelona’s latest sponsorship deal and the goal scoring success that Real Madrid’s Jude Bellingham is having this season.
The sponsorship deal in evidence yesterday was the latest example of FC Barcelona’s latest attempt to strengthen its liquidity and extricate itself from the black financial hole it got itself into it with an inflated salary bill prior to and during the pandemic.
Barca purists nonetheless believe that club executives are putting money before heart and soul , such is the history of FC Barcelona , a club that for years took pride in being mes que un club ‘more than a club’ because of its claimed cultural identity with Catalan nationalism and resistance to Franco.
There was not much purity but rather cynical commercial opportunism yesterday in the Barca team warming up in jerseys emblazoned with the Rolling Stones’ “hot lips” logo, to coincide with the band promoting its new album.
Merchandising on sale included Barca shirts carrying the Stones logo , with promotion given a boost by the widely publicised presence of Mick Jagger and fellow band member Ronny Wood , strutting and clapping to some of their tunes among the VIP guests in the directors’ box.
The TV screens showed a sold out venue at the Estadi Olímpic Lluís Companys with a group of excited young girls saying they had come all the way from Mexico to watch the match- or was it Jagger that they had really come to see? The rock and roll razzmatazz buried any historic resonance of a stadium that hosted the alternative anti-fascist Olympics to those held by Hitler in Berlin 1936, or the memory of Lluis Companys, the president of Catalunya who was executed by Franco in 1940 in Barcelona’s Montjuic castle.
In fact the stadium with its 54,000 capacity is only being temporarily used by Barca through this season as it renovates its enblemic 90,000 plus Camp Nou, much to the anger of many of its season ticket holders who feel ripped off and stay away. (Real Madrid by contrast wisely renovated its Bernabeu stadium during the pandemic, so fans did not feel they were losing out because of bad management planning.)
But now to the second ‘B’ . After a bright start by the home team, the English star international Bellingham got into his stride in the second half, and showed himself easily the most creative and impactful player on the pitch by outmanoeuvring the Barca defence, and scoring two brilliants goals that secured Barca 1-2 defeat.
This prompted Madrid fans tweeting that The Beatles had always been their favourite band , and leaving Barca fans in the Bar Latino looking forlorn and despondent as the London rain fell on their boat.
