People who don’t follow football (or soccer, as you Americans call it) may think that getting up at 3am to watch a game in an unknown city is plain crazy. They may not understand how someone can travel over 20 hours just because you may get a ticket to a match, only to end up stuck in a tiny pub, without any money, surrounded by the other team’s supporters. In that situation, it would be insane to shout at the top of your lungs when your striker scores the goal that gives you the win. You know what though? I have done all of those things. People say that I’m completely nuts, but I disagree. I have a passion: FCB.
Barca supporters are nicknamed ‘culers’. We may struggle to pay our mortgage every month, find it impossible to get a decent job to raise our families, suffer from broken limbs, have a dying granny who desperately needs visiting in hospital… But when Messi and co. play, nothing else matters to us. Everything is put on hold.
Tonight’s Inter’s game will make or break our season. The team needs us to push them on to victory – It was remarkable to see how Guardiola’s men asked for our support after last Saturday’s game against Xerez. There has been an unprecedented response from fans, starting numerous Internet campaigns such as ‘Remuntada’ and others. The city of Barcelona is behind its team, and so are the rest of the culers around the world.
But, at the end of the day, the dream of lifting the Champions League at the Bernabeu Stadium in Madrid rests in the legs and hearts of our 11 heroes. Tonight, our players can’t do no wrong. And, even if they do, we won’t tell them. They need us too cheer, shout, scream and fight with them. We know that if we all put our hearts to it, we can do it.
As I said, once the ball starts rolling, nothing else will matter to me and the hundreds, thousands, millions of Barca fans around the world – Sorry Granny.
