The Camp Nou will be floodlit and blinding on November 29th, with over ninety-eight thousand people packed into its five-tiered terracing, watching twenty-two players battle on its raised pitch. Cast against the black sky, this match between Barcelona and Real Madrid will have more than the usual aura of spectacle; it carries with it the history of modern Spain.
To understand this game is to understand that football is politics in Spain. For the Barça fan, to understand this game is to understand the history of Catalonia. It is to understand why Futbol Club de Barcelona’s sporting motto is “més que un club”, more than a club.
There are points at stake, of course. The three points awaiting the victor would give Barça a two-point lead over Los Blancos while a victory for Real Madrid would see them move four points clear of Las Blaugranas. But to reduce this match to a scoreboard is to miss what a Barça-Real Madrid match is all about, to not understand how much of Catalonia’s history is the story of humiliation and frustration, its aspirations as a regional power stamped upon by a dictator.
After the Spanish Civil War, once the dictatorship led by General Francisco Franco had overthrown the Republican government, the new regime sought to recreate Spain in its own image. From 1939 until his death in 1975, Franco sought to eradicate Catalanisme. The Catalan language and flag were banned, the customs of the region were made illegal and clubs were prohibited from using non-Spanish names. Opponents were exiled, imprisoned, or executed. Fútbol Club Barcelona, (which had its name forcibly changed to Club de Fútbol Barcelona), had its first martyr when Josep Sunyol, the club president, was arrested in the Sierra de Guadarrama and executed by Franco’s troops on a mountain road outside Madrid.
During the dictatorship one of the few places that Catalan could be freely spoken and the flag proudly waved was within Barça’s stadium. The club drew the people within, offering identity in persecution and confidence with each title and especially with each defeat of Real Madrid, the team, in the eyes of the Barça fan, that represents a dictator’s repression. For the people who believe that football means Barelona, there is no occasion when the hatred of their historical bondage to the capital of Madrid bursts out more than when Real Madrid come to play in the Camp Nou. It will be another one for the ages.
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