Hola part 4! Soccer in Barcelona

Soccer soccer soccer.

Camp Nou - We visited the five star soccer stadium which is home to FC Barcelona. Soccer was in the off-season during my visit, but there are self-guided stadium tours, a massive store, and a huge museum to lure thousands of fans.

I made my family wake up early so we could be first in line for the tour, which we were. From the outside, the stadium is massive. It seats about 100,000 people, but it has held as many as 120,000 when there were terraces back in the day. The best part of the tour by far is walking out of the players tunnel and up onto the pitch. The club's slogan "Mes que un club" is written across the seats. The upper decks tower over the field. You feel really small on the field. The tour leads you through press rooms, locker rooms, the stadium chapel, the presidential areas, and to the press boxes before guiding you to the museum.

I was expecting a small rinky-dink museum with a few artifacts from the club. Instead, I got a massive lesson on the history of the team that really was more than club. FC Barcelona really stands for the Catalan people and their pride. The club and all it's sporting success in soccer, basketball, hockey, handball, and many other sports shows a lot of resilience and honor that their little corner of Spain is capable of.

The team shop was nuts too. There was everything from FC Barcelona doggy beds to refrigerators. If there was an item that could have an FC Barcelona logo on it, it was for sale. I now regret not buying an FC Barcelona toaster.

My family thought the stadium was cool too. I think they were more impressed by the museum than I was. Camp Nou wasn't just about sport, it was a symbol of Catalonia and Barcelona. I definitely recommend a trip there even if you don't like soccer. It's a history, cultural, and sports lesson all in one.

Estadio Olimpico - This was of course the Olympic Stadium from the 1992 Olympics. It's currently home to Barcelona's second soccer team, RCD Espanyol, but that team has a new stadium on the outskirts of town and won't remain their for very long. We were there for about 10 minutes as we were hiking around Parc Montjuic. It was neat to see and in a beautiful location on the Montjuic mountain.

Soccer in general in Barcelona - Many people in Barcelona had FC Barcelona gear on. It was by far the most popular article of clothing I saw. I only saw one person wearing an RCD Espanyol jersey during the entire trip. I didn't see too many Spanish national team jereseys, despite Spain's triumph in the European championships a week before I arrived.

On TV, soccer was was always the lead sport despite the off-season. Two major events captured most of the news while I was there. First, FC Barcelona's president won re-election, but only narrowly. Eight of the board members quit in protest of his re-election. Second, Ronaldinho, the world's best player from 04-06, was sold to AC Milan in Italy. After this happened, the only sports news on Spanish TV was Ronaldinho highlights.