Saturday night at the bar: a football classic

It may not be the clasico par excellence, pitting the Barcelona Football Club against their arch rival, the long-despised Real Madrid team. However, the match between theblaugranaand the other main team from the capital, Atletico Madrid, is in any case a contest which has excited the respective supporters for decades, either in the Liga or in the Copa del Rey challenges. Memorable games (including an incredible match in 1997, ending 5-4 in favour of the Catalan team) which have made history in the Spanish football tradition. This year, though, there was an additional aspect which made the expectation for the game even more feverish than usual: the two teams shared the first place in the ranking, after giving several impressive demonstration of superiority during the first half of the championship.

Therefore, I thought that no better occasion could be found to satisfy my curiosity about watching a football match in a bar, surrounded by a crowd of heated fans. From what I have seen in my first months in Spain, going the Saturday night (or Sunday, depending on the case) meeting to watch the football together with a group of friends appears to be an established tradition. Each pub (of course, the ones having the rights for the pay-tv) normally has the board reporting the time of the match and the teams playing clearly visible. With a bit of melancholy, memories came to my mind, reminding me of the time when this custom used to be very popular in Italy as well. Then, the tradition fell a bit into disuse, the ones having a pay-tv comfortably watching the match at home, the others managing in other ways.

At any rate, this top of the league challenge was the right chance for me to make my first appearance at the bar called Penya Barcelonista, meaning the den of the blaugrana fans, in Vilanova i la Geltrù. Despite arriving a few minutes earlier, the place was already packed. Fortunately, I was finally able to find a place at the counter. Waiting for my hot-dog to be served, I had a look around to have a more precise idea of the people who were crowding the local. Quite to my surprise, the audience was made up not only by excited young man waiting eagerly for the match or elderly people sipping their beers and making sardonic comments, who would be the common turnout in Italy. On the contrary, young girls wearing Barcelona t-shirts, families with young children, woman joining their husbands were also there, ready for the match.

As a consequence, the spirit was not at all exasperated, but rather really pleasant and convivial. As the referee started off the game, the atmosphere grew slightly more silent and concentrated, as everyone's eyes focused on the two large screens placed in different part of the room. As the game advanced, it was almost possible to follow it even without watching, according to the different reactions of the audience. The offensive actions of the blaugrana team were accompanied by a growing state of excitement, which normally ended in a series of gesture of disappointment or exclamations of annoyance, as the team did not succeed in scoring a goal. When it was the opponent's turn to attack, instead, the silence grew more intense and everybody seemed to hold their breath, finally cheering the successful intervention of the defense or the goalkeeper with a sigh of relief or a collective applause. Very few were the acts or gesture of irritation towards the referee's decisions, also due to the general correctness of the players.

After a 10-minutes break at half-time, the game resumed and so did the growing expectation for the decisive stroke which, however, did not came. The match, indeed, ended in a goalles draw, leaving the two teams tied at the top of the ranking. Neither the blaugrana stars Messi and Neymar, who came into the game in the second half, nor Villa and Diego Costa, the Spanish forwards playing for the rojiblancos, were able to score a goal. At any rate, following the final whistle of the referee most people left their seat quite satisfied, contenting themselves with having spent a nice evening in good company, while the inevitable notes of El Cant del Barça, the blaugrana anthem, were spread by the speakers.

In last analysis, I think that watching a live match in a bar, even better if it is the local penya of the team, is an absolutely memorable experience, even for those who may not be fanatics of football.

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