On the day that marks 50 years since Johan Cruyff’s official debut as a Barça footballer against Granada, another historical event will involve Barcelona fans. Play classic. And not just any one, but one that will be remembered as the first classic in history to be played at the Estadi Olímpic de Montjuïc. Who knows if it will be the only one, depending on the competition calendar, the Cup draws or the deadlines for the Camp Nou works. But what is certain is that he will be the first. Barça faces it with the enthusiasm that comes from having a handful of fantastic kids at their side who have allowed them to surf with dignity the wave of injuries they have been suffering. He is one point behind Madrid and a victory would put him above a rival who had serious mishaps at the beginning of the season, with the injuries of Courtois and Militão. The Bellingham impact, the great star that he had been looking for in Mbappé’s unsuccessful poster, has allowed him to erase any hint of negativity from the beginning.
To rearm, not even morally, Xavi woke up the staff this Friday with the good news of the possibility of recovering troops. If Raphinha already trained on Thursday, Lewandowski and De Jong, who were already expected, joined in the last training session prior to the match, as well as Koundé and Pedri by surprise. The Brazilian and the Pole are the ones who, a priori, are in the best conditions to play minutes. In the case of the center forward, he is doing everything possible to play because he knows that he does not have many replacements in the squad and he wants to force. In order not to give clues and hurry up options, Xavi has delayed the release of the squad list until today.
For any of them to play the entire match seems very complicated but any help will be little for a small group of troops that has been squeezed by the circumstances. A short squad in which young people like Lamine Yamal, prepared to unbalance at any moment, and Fermín López, who has earned a leading role in this great showcase through brilliant performance, will face their classic initiation. Madrid seems like a more physical team, especially in a midfield with Valverde, Tchouaméni or Bellingham. The always fiery Gavi, who was rested in the Champions League due to suspension, will have to multiply because it is not in Barça’s interest to discover his back. Returning to the strength of last season would be a blessing for Barcelona.
The focus will be on the players but also on the referee, Gil Manzano, and on the VAR, in the midst of Spanish football punctuated by the Negreira case, the Real Madrid Television videos, other weeks, and the complaints of Ancelotti, who is once he did praise the referee. Any controversial decision threatens to mark a match in which the public will also want to play their part in Montjuïc, a facility that is being less cold for Barça than one could have imagined. In fact, the Blaugrana have won all seven of their games at the Olímpic.
The game does not arrive with an incandescent level of temperature, but with the threat of a volcano under any circumstance. The fire was lit a few days ago by Barcelona manager Miquel Camps with his offensive tweet about Vinícius. An ugly one that Florentino Pérez clung to in order to be absent from the classic on Barcelona soil for the second consecutive season. “It’s just football,” could say the Rolling Stones, whose logo the Barcelona fans will wear, imitating one of their great songs (“It’s Only Rock n’ Roll”). But a classic, experienced by land, sea and air, will never be just football. Montjuïc, which has been home to great concerts and the Olympic Games that changed Barcelona, ??is about to discover it.