J.J. Jenkins is a business administration junior and Mustang Daily study abroad columnist.
I don’t think you know frustration until you watch one of the best fútbol clubs in the world fail to send a shiny, round ball into a rectangular goal for 86 minutes.
I guess you don’t know elation until that ball slips past the goalkeeper and rattles home off the crossbar.
For those more accustomed to American football, Camp Nou is home to FC Barcelona — a soccer team with arguably the best player in the world and a dominating style that has brought back four European Champions League titles to Catalonia.
And at these pearly gates of soccer-fan heaven is where I found myself Friday night. My seats hovered over the north goal line, where Barcelona would be attacking in the second half, and looked out across the iconic “Més que un club” (Note: That is in Catalán, not Spanish; “mes” with the accent is correct) slogan painted on the seats to my left.
The fans filed quietly into their seats, the raucous pregame atmosphere of American sporting events was distinctly lacking and the stadium didn’t even sell alcoholic beer. It’s as if the puppet masters of the soccer universe were making sure fans were there to watch and fully enjoy the intricacies that define the team.
I turned to my right where a father and his 8-year-old son sat with bocadillos and asked, in Spanish, if this was the boy’s first game. It was really a ploy to practice my language skills, but we ended up talking for a bit as the players warmed up.
“Who’s your favorite player?” I asked.
“Messi,” he said with a toothy grin. I motioned to the bold “10” on the back of my jersey.
“Me too.”
The father leaned over and explained that when he was young he came to Camp Nou and watched another godly Argentinian player for Barcelona, Diego Maradona.
Maradona was on a completely different level back then, he said, but now Messi has transcended “godly.”
It brought me back to all those Nebraska football games I watched with my dad when I was young. That father-son bonding over the shared love of sport is simply one of those amazing events that transcend culture and language. The kid sitting next to me was born in another decade, another country, to another family, but when it came to sports, we will always share distinct memories watching the great athletes of a generation with our fathers.
It’s more than a game.
As a witness to that greatness, I couldn’t knock the goofy smile off my face.
Barcelona was heavily favored against Granada, plus Real Madrid had yet to win a La Liga fixture, so Messi and company had a chance to throw the Blancos in a deeper hole.
But the Granada side had heart. Barcelona held its typical possession advantage but the opposition was happy to sit back, converge on Messi anytime he was over the ball while the stadium held its collective breath and counterpunch.
After the break, Barcelona came out in search of three points. But without an injured Andres Iniesta (not to mention Gerard Piqué and Carles Puyol), the team kept sparking with dazzling moves from Messi, but Granada continued to douse the flame.
With less than 15 minutes remaining, former Barcelona B-teamer Christian Tello, who scored a goal to start the Champions League season three days before, entered the match and provided a critical left wing presence that gave Messi and Xavi Hernandez space in the center.
The backs, anchored by recent transfer Alex Song, pushed past the midfield line and continued to halt Granada runs and push the ball forward.
The ball pinballed around the pitch as the crowd, increasingly frustrated, was let down cross after cross. It was clear Barca was the better team, but whether the scoreboard would reflect that remained to be seen.
Then the ball, rebounding after another failed cross, fluttered to the feet of Xavi on the right-center edge of the box. Four minutes into the game, he wouldn’t have taken the shot, but with four left … it was a different story.
His right leg reared back and fired, hitting the ball with the outside of his foot. It was a bullet, but time froze. The keeper lunged; no one told him he had no chance as the ball glanced off the bar in the upper 90, cueing pandemonium at Camp Nou.
Cueing wild-dancing, high-fives, looks of disbelief in the stands. We may have been soccer-ignorant Americans, but we knew a golazo when we saw one.
Barcelona wasn’t done, though. Maybe it was the momentum, but in extra time Messi finally found himself on the left wing with three defenders blocking his path to the goal.
I’m not sure six could have stopped him. When you have glue for shoes, you can do things like that — things that put your jaw on the floor only to be brought back up when he throws the ball across the face of the net and a Granada defender taps it home.
Messy? No, Messi. He may not have scored it, but he was the only player in the world who could have made that goal happen.
The fans reveled briefly in their sudden victory then emptied out of the stadium just as they entered: quietly. The game had been won, but, for these fans, a more important battle loomed. And it’s called El Clásico.
Note: The original version of this story incorrectly spelled Alex Song’s name.