Initial disappointment turns to joy for FERDIA MAC ANNAand his son as Messi and co turn on the style at Camp Nou
I AM STANDING in the magnificent Camp Nou stadium in Barcelona (capacity: 98,000) with my 13-year-old son on St Jordi’s Day. Barca vs Osasuna is his early birthday treat. For months, we have saved to watch Messi, Iniesta, Xavi and other football Gods strut their stuff.
All should be wonderful but instead I feel like the worst dad in the world. Our category one seats are under a large awning next to a burger stand – you can see the pitch properly only by leaning forward. Disaster. My son is devastated. I feel like it’s my fault. So much effort for seats worse than the back row of the Baggot Inn in the mid-1970s.
In desperation, I ring the emergency number provided by our soccer tour company. If having crap seats in the Nou Camp on your son’s birthday treat isn’t an emergency, then what is? The woman is nice but she can’t help. Next, I call the company boss in Ireland and he apologises but can’t do anything.
Then another shock: the team is announced. No Iniesta or Xavi and worst of all, no Messi. Barca must be saving their stars for the Champions League. My son’s heroes have deserted us. There is no worse feeling than the ominous sensation that I have let my boy down. I make a dad speech: It’ll be okay. Messi might come on as a sub. But he doesn’t buy it. I’m not sure I buy it myself. I offer up a prayer to St Jordi, my last hope.
As kick-off nears, I start to panic. I calm myself and take a risk, moving down to empty seats 10 rows from the pitch, the kind I thought we had paid for. Luckily nobody comes to claim the seats.
The match kicks off and despite our downbeat mood, we get into it. At least now we can see every kick, ride every tackle, savour the intoxicating atmosphere of one of the world’s great stadiums. Barca take the lead through David Villa and 98,000 people erupt as one.
A few moments later, a miracle – we see a Barca player warming up on the sideline. It’s Andres Iniesta, a legendary local lad who scored the goal that won the World Cup for Spain last summer. Iniesta replaces Milito and my son is overjoyed.
Things really pick up. Two more players warm up. One is Xavi. The other is a small, familiar, robust figure – Lionel Messi, the greatest player in the world.
Soon, all the heroes are on the pitch and the Camp Nou is soccer nirvana. A few minutes from the end, Messi scores a delightful goal. The scoreboard reads: “Gol de Leo Messi”. It doesn’t get much better than that.
Barca win 2-0 and afterwards we walk to the metro, feeling ecstatic. I feel relieved that disaster somehow became a wonderful and memorable night. My prayers to St Jordi were answered, and in style.
On the metro back to our hotel we pile in with the Barca fans. Every Barcelona woman carries a single red rose. On St Jordi’s Day, April 23rd – like Valentine’s Day but with a latin twist – it is traditional for men to give their amors roses. In return, the women present their men with books. Recently the tradition has come under fire from women who argue that a rose lasts only a day while a book is for life.
All along La Rambla, we pass multitudes of rose and book stands, a riot of colour. We have been warned about pickpockets – I bought a money belt, just in case – but we encounter no trouble during our stay. Instead, there is a terrific atmosphere, lots of good, cheap food, and nothing but courtesy and helpfulness from the locals.
Our hotel, the Hotel Avinyo – just off La Rambla in the Goth quarter – is a comfortable three-star with piped TV and cosy rooms, though my son found the breakfast sausages inedible.
However, my football obsessed preteen took to the city’s atmosphere and style, though he found walking to and from metro stations a bit tedious. The metro is the cheapest and handiest way to travel around Barcelona.
The next day we attend Barca B vs Real Betis in the Mini Estadi, a 15,000-seater stadium across the road from Camp Nou. Seated in the “Minis”, cheap seats directly behind the goals, we are bang in the middle of hardcore Barca fans whose obscene, graphic chanting does not require a translator.
On our final day, we take the Gaudi bus tour to savour the gobsmacking grandeur of Antoni Gaudí’s astonishing, innovative architectural designs, particularly the Sagrada Família which is still only half-way completed though work began in 1888.
We get home on the third day exhausted but exhilarated, high on the memory of Messi’s goal and the Camp Nou experience.
The next day my son announces he wants to move to Barcelona. Maybe we will – at least on match days, and provided we can get good seats at the Camp Nou.
* Ferdia and Finn Mac Anna booked category one tickets to Barcelona vs Osasuna plus two nights B&B in the Hotel Catalunya Avinyo through Celtic Horizon Tours, cost: €688. They flew Aer Lingus return Dublin-Barcelona, cost: €448.
* Barca B tickets, Mini Estadi (opposite Camp Nou), cost: €5.
* Three-hour Gaudi bus tour with Barcelona Guide Bureau, departing Playa Catalunya, cost: €45 per adult, €20 per child.