Nou Camp, featured in Barcelona tourist literature, would be tagged under the wrong heading. It would be under sporting events, sport museums and not under live art performance. The Barcelona way, or the ‘total football’ name its inventors call the style, to me is one of the most beautiful live performances on the planet. Like a 11 member vintage rock band. Like a 11 piece orchestra that has millions of heart jump and beat in glee.
The football that they play is that good. Yes you’ll have the broken strings once in a while, the minor stage glitches, but on the whole it is so beautiful, so free-flowing, so in tune with the revolutions of this earth, one has to consider it a great spectacle. A kind of reverberation, proof to what humans can achieve when put together and working towards a goal. Barcelona’s football follows the highs, the lows, the crescendos that culminate in what usually are great goals.
The artists involved right from Valdes to Messi, know that they are part of the whole and the sum is always greater than the parts. Messi could be the Mick Jaegger but he knows there’s no Rolling Stones without Xavi, Iniesta, Villa and the rest that make up the Blaugrana. (I only wish Argentina would realize this.) So no matter what happens this season. No matter how many they lose, you could be assured of one thing. A live art performance that lasts for ninety minutes. If things don’t go to extra time that is.
