El Valor de Tenir Valors

When Barca on the La Liga championship a couple of weeks ago and fans gathered at the stadium to cheer their team, the players threw bell peppers into the stands.  The players were wearing navy blue t-shirts with a red and a blue pepper printed on the back, along with the words “El Valor de Tenir Valors.”  “Valor” means courage or values in Spanish.  The words on the shirt are in Catalan, but in this case there is enough similarity to Spanish, so the phrase means something like “The courage to have values” or “The value of having values.”

The Monday following the rua, or parade, I asked my Spanish teacher, Sylvia, what the peppers were all about.  She explained that tenir pebrots—“to have peppers”—in Catalan, means to be gutsy.   In Spanish you would say tener cojones—“to have balls”, as in “That team is really ballsy” or “He has a lot of balls…”.  You wouldn’t literally translate pebrots to pimientos in Spanish or peppers in English. 

In the two weeks between the La Liga victory and last night’s Champions League final against Manchester United at Wembley Stadium, fans wearing the pepprer t-shirt could be spotted everywhere.  I snagged myself one at the FCBotiga at the airport.  Jody and I spotted a sweet shop that created windows to celebrate the team (see photo below).

Yesterday evening I left Alec with C.C., Milo, Zadie, and Milo’s best friend Peter as I zipped to the airport to pick up Matt and Jody from their Paris trip.  Their flight got in at 8:10 and the game started at 8:45.  We made it back just in time for the start of the game.  I had made some patatas bravas, and we put out cheese and a delicious and beautiful salmon tart that Jody and Matt brought back from Paris.  I opened a bottle of cava and we settled in to watch the game.  Barca seemed off their rhythm at first—they didn’t have possession of the ball as much as they normally do, and their quick, short passing dance just wasn’t happening.  It looked as though Mann U had their number.  But it didn’t take long for Barca to get back on track.  Pedro scored a goal off of a beautiful, long pass from Xavi in the 27^th minute.  Then Manchester United answered with a goal by Wayne Rooney in the 34^th—which, as it turns out, was offsides.  Not surprisingly, today’s Mundo Deportivo is entirely devoted to the game. The still frames published that depict the moments before and after the goal make it quite clear.  The teams went to the locker room with the game tied, 1-1.

When they returned to the field, Barca looked different—they quickly took control of the game.  Messi took a short pass from Iniesta and scored a beautiful goal that whizzed just to the right of Manchester United’s goalie.  In minute 69, Barca buried their opponent when Villa scored. 

After the game, Sir Alex Ferguson—who coaches Manchester United and has won 19 titles over the course of his long and successful career—said he had never coached against such a tremendous team.  It was a beautiful game, watching Barca play the beautiful game.  And, as we begin to prepare to leave Barcelona, somehow a fitting end, marking the end of a year that feels victorious in so many ways.