Away Days: Barcelona, winter sunshine & Disneyfied football at Camp Nou | OneFootball

Phones. Phones were my main takeaway from an afternoon at Camp Nou watching Barcelona.

People who record every bit of goalmouth action on their phones. People who spend the match striving for the elixir of the perfect Instagram pose. People who don’t watch a single kick and scroll through their phone.

There are moments of high-pitched noise, but also long stretches where you can hear the players shout at each other from my seat in the gods.

I took in Barca’s 3-0 win over Levante during a weekend in Catalonia, or ticked off Europe’s biggest stadium in the parlance of the cold-blooded Futbology droids who live among us.

But this was barely a football match, neither on the pitch nor off it. This was content thinly disguised as sport, eagerly posted on social media by people determined to show they were there.

The author J.G. Ballard once said, “If you want to know what the future will be like, go to an airport.” It’s time we updated this to a Barcelona game at Camp Nou.

Les Corts cemetery

In an effort to assimilate with the locals, I wear jeans and a coat on a sunny Sunday afternoon.

Sixteen degrees is nothing to get excited about in Spain, even in late February. But the cloudless conditions upon exiting Palau Reial metro station are too alluring.

The coat is soon tied around my waist and I feel the warmth of the sun on my bare arms for the first time since September. Life instantly feels 10% better.

Amid the cluster of stalls selling Barca shirts, scarves and possibly sternums, lies the unobtrusive presence of Les Corts cemetery.

It’s where I seek refuge from the scores of Americans, inauspiciously decked out in official club merchandise bought with disposable income far beyond my means.

The cemetery is full of artistic tombs and monuments – Catholics do death properly – and is blessed with an arresting quietness. Club legend Laszlo Kubala is buried here.

Noises of the living, including from the looming Camp Nou, could never intrude on the peace of its inhabitants.

We are an increasingly over-stimulated species, incapable of going for a walk or sitting on the toilet without distractions. There’s none of that at Les Corts cemetery and the stillness takes my breath away.

Taio Cruz

The labyrinth of building works around this vast stadium means it requires a walking stick, picnic basket and a detour via France to find the right turnstile.

Entrance is straightforward, especially for someone conditioned by the invasive airport-style security at West Ham.

And one glance at the iconic stands, even in their two-thirds finished state, is enough to melt an outer layer of my cynicism. Barca plan to add another tier and a roof, taking its final capacity to 105,000.

The blaring commercialism is turned up to 11. The club are now sponsored by Spotify and the days of wearing Unicef on their shirt feel very quaint.

During the Spanish Civil War, the club was actively involved in anti-fascist movements against General Franco.

Barca had never had a front-of-shirt sponsor until 2010, as they didn’t feel it was in keeping with the club ethos.

Now the pre-match warm-up is soundtracked by Taio Cruz, with the upcoming albums of Mumford & Sons and assorted nobodies advertised on the pitchside hoardings.

Mes que un club, specifically a nightclub in provincial England from the early 2010s.

Slippers

The actual game is over as a contest within four minutes after Marc Bernal had fired past ex-Brighton goalkeeper Mat Ryan.

Levante had actually threatened to score twice before then, with Hansi Flick’s team playing the kind of suicidal highline destined to be exposed in the Champions League knockouts.

But any succour afforded to the thin tortilla-slice section of away fans is extinguished 20 minutes later, once Frenkie de Jong doubles Barca’s lead.

De Jong runs the game, comfortable enough to be wearing slippers. For all the money invested in English football, we still don’t produce central midfielders of his ilk, both technically accomplished and tactically intelligent.

Pedri comes on later to further underline this point. At roughly the same time, Declan Rice’s limitations are being exposed in the North London derby.

But this isn’t a day for the big names; Robert Lewandowski is quiet, to the disappointment of the substantial Polish contingent that contains two of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen.

Raphinha is largely subdued, but at least proves he’d be a brilliant Grim Reaper as his first touch kills the ball stone dead on several occasions.

I’d been looking forward to seeing Lamine Yamal, a player almost worth the €90 ticket price this Europoor stumped up.

He produces some moments of magic, leaving defenders bemused by dragging his foot over the ball.

But he’s not the finished article, with passes shanked out of play and being tackled more often than not. He’s still only 18, an age when I was getting paralytic in Kavos. I’ll let him off.

There’s also my first real senior moment, as I cannot determine the identity of the No. 7 who replaces Lewandowski for the life of me.

It turns out to be Ferran Torres, a borderline resignation offence for the editor of a football website.

Crowd

The second half is bitty enough to confirm this is truly the cathedral that Johan Cruyff built to tactical fouling.

With the game petering out, before Fermin Lopez clinches the win with a scorcher, my attention turns back to the crowd.

Alongside Americans and Poles, there are high numbers of Japanese, French and British (t-shirt, shorts, heroically refusing to speak any Spanish) people here.

There’s no shame attached to eating popcorn or wearing half-and-half scarves in my section, items that stir a deep rage in many reasonable football-loving Englishmen.

But there was no passion either. Except for a little Levante fan behind me, who looked about 12, scowling and bemoaning his relegation-bound team with a hangdog expression.

I’m aware of my hypocrisy, but I’ve been to Real Sociedad, Valencia and Atletico Madrid as a neutral and none felt as Disneyfied as this.

Ultimately, this was another tick on the Barcelona tourist trail for many; see the Sagrada Familia, gawp through the Parc Guell, take photos of every painting in the Picasso museum.

It’s all lucrative stuff for Barca, able to charge extortionate prices for one-off tickets to ease their well-documented financial woes.

Premier League chairmen have busily spent the last few years scrapping concession prices, squeezing out season ticket holders and marketing their stadiums as tourist attractions. This all represents utopia to them.

My holiday reading was George Orwell’s 1984, the iconic novel about a dystopian future. In many ways, it’s already here.