Category Archives: Football
Warsaw Diary
There was a long queue at passport control at Warsaw’s Chopin airport on arrival from London. ‘Never happened before’ said a young polish lady. I and another British national looked at each other with the thought passing through our minds- is Brexit already with us? It turned out there were a couple of police officers who had turned up late for their shift and in the end we all swept through the EU lane relatively smoothly- but for a few minutes it did make one think, how …
The Joy of Messi
The joy of Messi Writing in El Pais today the journalist Jordi Quixano notes that the health of FC Barcelona depends on Leo Messi’s smile and the excellence of his football. Watching Messi play in the pre-season warm-up game against Leicester City last night , I was not alone in feeling elated. The crowd in Stockholm’s aptly named Friends Arena evidently relished, as did TV viewers around the world, his ability to raise the occasion to something worthwhile. It was indeed a necessary tonic after a summer marred by an …
Renewing my Barca membership
Nothing like renewing one’s FC Barcelona membership card-as I’ve just done – at the Camp Nou-to focus one’s mind. Membership does not come cheap and in the many years of being a cule I haven’t exactly gained much benefit from it. Phones lines are usually busy so it is almost impossible to communicate, let alone vote from London where I live for much of the year. Not being a techo geek, I find the membership section of the Barca website difficult to navigate, and I’ve never managed to get a …
The privilege of being a Barca fan
Let me honest. It’s been a long time since I felt as proud of being a Barca fan as tonight when FC Barcelona beat Bayern Munich 3-0. This was a game played by two great sides, charged with emotion, pursued with strength, and delivered with grace by the best player in the world that worked his magic a amidst giants of the game. This was a first leg that should have been a final but will still endure in the memory of any true football fan as a master class, …
Barca needs a different Laporta
I cannot remember when I last watched FC Barcelona play and enjoyed it. But I’ve taken to looking for old DVD’s of Ronaldinho, of Messi, of Iniesta and Xavi and Pujol, of Valdes, and Guardiola, and Johan Cruyff, in an exercise of nostalgia for those halcyon days when a team came together under a manager and a president, struck a harmonious note, and gave us pure magic-the kind of football you would remember for the rest of your life. Nostalgia is a risky business for it draws us into …
La faz inexcusable del futbol
Cuando dos grupos de hombres jóvenes y de mediana edad, manejando diversos instrumentos de violencia desde cuchillos hasta barras de hierro se enfrentan de tal modo que dejan a un muerto y decenas de heridos, y todo porque su lealtades se dividen entre equipos de fútbol-hay algo muy mal, no sólo en el juego, sino todo el contexto en el que se juega este deporte. Las circunstancias de la muerte de un hincha del Deportivo La Coruña a manos de una turba Atléticista fue particularmente horrible: la victima fue …
The inexcusable distinctiveness of football
When two large group of young and middle-aged men, wielding various instruments of violence from knives and knuckle dusters to iron bars first charge , then beat each other – to death in one case-and leave many others injured-severely in several cases-, all because they happen to support different football teams-there is something badly wrong not just in the game but the whole context in which it’s played. Judging by reports that have emerged, the circumstances of the death of a Deportivo La Coruña fan at the hands of …
Barca in Limbo
Some days ago I was besieged by angry comments from Catalan friends and their English sympathisers when I suggested that FC Barcelona currently mirrored the disfunctionality of Catalan politics. Having just come back from one of my regular visits to Catalunya, let me rest my case. Barca is a team playing without joy, rhythm or system. Neymar has a growing tendency to frown and protest, like a spoilt school kid, lacking the grace and sheer toothy big smile fun that Ronaldino gave us in his heyday. Suarez beats his …
