Barcelona is my adopted sports team here in Spain. I try to watch them play as much as I can. Why? Because I know every time I watch I'm witnessing something great and historically significant in the world of sports. Years from now, I'll think about how cool it was that I happened to be in Spain while Xavi, Iniesta, and Messi were in their prime. It's a bit sports nerdy, but I think about it every time I watch a game.
The three players above will go down as some of the all time greats in the sport. Messi, perhaps, will be seen as the greatest ever. People watch Messi for the same reason they watched Jordan, Barry Sanders, or Tiger Woods: the possibility of seeing something amazing, something never seen before, and also to say they were there to see it.
La Liga, the Spanish League, is top heavy to say the least. When it comes down to it, there's Barcelona, Real Madrid, and the rest. Of course there are die hard fans for other teams that might be offended by a statement like that, but these two teams dominate the sports landscape here more than I'm used to with American sports. It seems everyone has to choose a side. When I've introduced myself to classes over the last couple years, inevitably a boy will raise his hand and ask me if I'm for Barca or Madrid. When I say Barca, half the class responds with cheers and the other half with disgust.
Much of the polarization has to do with not having a salary cap in the league. As I watch Barca rip through the competition, in the back of my head I'm thinking that there is something unfair about this. That even though I love watching Xavi, Iniesta, and Messi play on the same team, I know this is only possible because there is no salary cap. And as my generation of Americans have been trained to think, leagues with no salary caps are not fair. A couple thoughts here: One, I'm clearly a product of watching American sports in the salary cap era. Two, it's kind of bizarre that American have developed such a distaste for the free market model while Europeans reject the socialist model.
Last Sunday, I finally made it to a game. It was a noon start time, the first since 1965 (they typically play around 7 pm or later). The early schedule time brought out lots of kids and casual fans making it the third largest crowd at Camp Nou (Barca's stadium) this season. Total attendance was around 85,000.
It was a very different experience than American sporting events whether at the professional or collegiate level. It seemed every one there was there to see a sporting event, not an entertainment event. There was no pregame "we're getting ready to go into battle" music. No flashy jumbotron introductions. No crazy halftime show production. NO INSTANT REPLAYS...Not having these things made me think about how the spectacle aspect of American sports has so come to legitimize the "big game" experience. I felt dissonance between what I expected out of a pro sports event and knowing that I was watching one of the best teams in the world play their respective sport. Without the "show" part of the game, it felt too real to be as big as it was.
So yeah, it was something I had to wrap my head around a bit, but cutting out those elements made for a really cool experience. It felt like the game was good enough to enjoy on it's own, a throwback to times before the spectacle took off in American sport.
It was a typical Barca league game. They were playing a far inferior opponent. They controlled probably three-quarters of total possession. They won 6-1.
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