El Clasico #4

When my Spanish teacher, Sylvia, showed up yesterday morning, I told her I had abandoned the novel she had suggested I read for the past few days and had switched to the newspaper.  I told her I was “leyendo el hype.”  When I don’t know how to translate a given word in Spanish, I often just throw out the English word.  Sometimes it actually works. 

“What is hype?”  she asked.

“Es lo que escriben las periodistas en avance de un gran partido,” I said.—It’s what the journalists write in the lead up to a big game.

There is nothing like the hype leading up to El Clasico.   Now that I think about it, I’m not sure how they can continue to call it El Classico, when last night’s was the fourth this year.  Shouldn’t it be Los Clasicos?

Anyway, I suppose that’s beside the point.  What is noteworthy is that Barça Fever seems to have snuck up on me and taken hold. I started out the year watching the team as a way to forge another connection point with my husband and son and also from the perspective of a sociologist, given how far-reaching the Fever is here. I now watch because I enjoy it.  I have been drawn into the drama, the stories, the personalities, even the rules of European futbol.

It’s not as though I’ve never been a sports fan.  My dad was a basketball coach, so I grew up with televised sports as the soundtrack of my childhood, and I hurried back  from my own doctoral graduation to watch the Knicks play in the NBA finals at my neighbor Larry Dunnigan’s house.  But it’s been a long time since I really got into a team, since I actually cared.

I often struggle to make myself read another depressing story about the economy in the newspaper. I tell myself I should read that first, and then reward myself with the dirt on Barça.  But usually the part of me that says, “It’s all in Spanish, so read whatever the hell you want,” wins out.   So on any given day I may know more about the status of Carles Puyol’s knee injury than I do about the state of the euro. C’est la vie.

Last night’s game was a real barnburner.  Before I tell you what happened, I have to give you the bare minimum in terms of context.  Okay, here goes.  Last night, Barça and Madrid played each other to determine which team will go to the finals of the Champions League tournament, to be played in Wembley Stadium on May 28.  But the interesting thing is that the semifinal is really two games, not one.  One game is played on each team’s home field—it’s called an “ida y vuelta,” which translates to “round trip.”  So it’s as though each game constitutes one half of the semifinal.  And in terms of scoring, a goal scored on one’s opponent’s field counts for more than a goal scored on one’s own field.  So, for example, Barca could lose the game on its home field (0 – 1) and win the game at Madrid (2 – 1).  Even though each team scored 2 goals, Barca would go to the finals because its two goals were scored on the other team’s field, whereas only one of Madrid’s was scored away.  If the number and kind of goals add up to a tie at the end of regulation time in the second game, they go to overtime, playing an 30 minute period.  If it’s still a tie, they go to penalty kicks.  (Honestly, I’m not sure where this information is being stored in my brain, since it’s harder every day for me to find my phone and keys.  I think it’s in the same place as all of those Top 40 song lyrics and commercial jingles from the 1970s).

Last night’s game took place at Santiago Bernabéu stadium, Real Madrid’s field.  Barça would have been happy to have come away with a tie.  In the second half,  Pepe, Real Madrid’s meat cleaver of a midfielder, was red carded, meaning that Real Madrid would have to play the remainder of the game with 10 players instead of 11.  RM is known for playing a very aggressive (some would say dirty) style of soccer, whereas Barça’s style, associated with Johan Cruyff who coached the team in the late 1980s and 1990s is known as “the beautiful game.”  (I prefer the onomatopeic “tiki-taka” to describe Barça’s style of play, which Wikipedia describes as a style  “characterised by short passing and movement, working the ball through various channels, and maintaining possession.”)

In the melee that ensued following the red card, Real Madrid’s coach, Mourinho, was also kicked off the field, and had to watch the remainder of the game from the stands.  Mourinho’s hysteria is the antithesis of Barça coach Pep Guardiola’s cool; if Guardiola is Coach K, Mourinho is Bobby Knight times 10.

With only ten players to face, Barça seized the opportunity not once but twice.  Messi scored both, the first scored in the 77^th minute on an assist by Afellay, and the second during the 86^th minute, a brilliant run through a slalom course of opponents ending with a patented Messi-style, perfectly placed pop into the net.

So the schoolyard at BFIS, and the streets of the city, were full of people wearing their Barça regalia today.  No other team has come back from the position Real Madrid is in to win but, as my dad always said, “The game isn’t over ‘til it’s over.”  Stay tuned.