Barcelona club president Joan Laporta
Tonight's Champions League final pits the champions of England against the champions of Spain, but Barcelona fans are unlikely to be waving the Spanish flag in celebration should they win this evening.
From The Times
If Barcelona win this evening, the Plaça Sant Jaume will be the magnet for the city’s delirium and that is unlikely to have changed by the time the team return for the official party the following day.
On one side of the square is the neo-classical City Hall building, and celebrating within those walls will be one of politics’ more genuine football romantics. Jordi Hereu, the mayor, does not support Barcelona because the allegiance wins him votes.
Hereu’s story is not uncommon, but if you wonder how Barcelona can pin themselves to their highfalutin motto — “More than a club” — and get away with it, this is something of an answer.
Hereu was born in 1965, one of five brothers in a middle-class, northern suburb, young Catalans in the latter days of General Franco, when the word “Catalan” was politically illegitimate.
He does not remember exactly when he got “the feeling” for the club, but he would go to the Nou Camp when his uncles had a spare ticket and he would watch whenever possible at home on television. “And it was certainly more than a club then,” he says.
'Expressing your freedom'
“We couldn’t speak Catalan in school, we couldn’t wave a Catalan flag, we couldn’t express our culture. Barça was a way of expressing your freedom, your identity.”
Back then, if you shouted: “Visca Catalonia!” (Long live Catalonia) you risked arrest. So you shouted “Visca Barça!” instead and with extra meaning.
And today, when Hereu talks about the club and their importance to the country — el pais — the country in question is not Spain but Catalonia.
“One of the first symbols of citizenship is to be a Barcelona supporter,” he says. He thus remembers February 17, 1974, in particular and the whole family gathering around the television to watch Barcelona play Franco’s team, Real Madrid, at the Bernabéu.
Barcelona, inspired by Johan Cruyff, were on course for their first Liga title after a 14-year drought during which the overlords, Real, had won nine titles.
'Strike against Francoism'
“I remember it like yesterday,” Hereu says. The scoreline was 5-0 to Barcelona and, for the family, every goal was a strike against Francoism.
Every one of that generation seems to remember that match — such as Xavier Sala-i-Martin, a director of the club and a candidate for the presidency in next year’s election.
He was 11 years old, a decent young player who would go on to play third division football. And because his father, a professor, had been imprisoned when one of his students informed on him for teaching in Catalan, the significance of the 5-0 was clear.
“Of course we were more than a club,” he said. “Under a dictatorship, we were the defenders of democracy.” So it is hard to dispute the credentials of the motto.
Excerpt from The Times, to read this article in full, please visit timesonline.co.uk
