Being an ardent fan of football in India, there are five major football leagues in Europe (England, France, Germany, Italy and Spain) to which I am largely exposed to. As all of us are aware that each of these leagues have 20 teams, barring the German Bundesliga which comprises of 18.
So this leaves me with an awareness set of almost a hundred football clubs. Each one of us falls in love with one crest for reasons aplenty and even though, as any football fan might deny, our love for this crest, at one point overhauls the love we have for the game itself.
So why do we smile, laugh, celebrate, jump, scream, abuse, worry, shed tears and even go into depression for a bunch of twenty odd people who we might never even see in our lives? Let me take you through those factors which made me a loyalist of the team because of which I even started following the game, FC Barcelona:
Unique identity
Barcelona have developed a unique identity in world football for themselves and it is something that a team can manage to do only over a long period of time.
The Blaugranas have their own youth academy known as ‘La Masia’ wherein the children are taught the Barcelona way of football which essentially involves a ‘pass and move’ style to keep possession and break down the opposition defence by manipulating them and creating space.
This is a style of football used to not just win but to dominate the opponent. The players can learn this style of football only in La Masia and this is exactly the reason why one-of-a-kind players like Pep Guardiola, Sergio Busquets and the newly found Sergi Samper, can be found only in their academy and they are tailor-made to play it their way.
A way of living
The influence that the team has on its fans extends to one’s life itself and doesn’t stop with just celebrating a victory or moaning a loss. However, the influence is largely sub-conscious and the DNA of the club is gradually embedded within us.
The Blaugranas are predominantly defined by humility, hard work, aggression, a winning mentality and team-play and thus these traits have been gradually embedded into every Cule.
Barcelona legend Johan Cruyff spoke about this influence on his own players during his reign as manager at the Camp Nou. He quoted the example of his squad doing everything from having lunch to training football at a ridiculously high speed.
He also believed that it was as a result of the kind of football that they played on the pitch that had an influence on their activities off it.
Historical significance and its impact
Barcelona are a club with rich history and it is thanks to that they are what they are today. The likes of Rinus Michels and Johan Cruyff have made tremendous contributions not only to Barcelona but to football itself. It is their ideas which have passed on to the managers of the modern era namely Pep Guardiola, Ronald Koeman, Louis van Gaal, Laurent Blanc and many others.
Since the Catalan giants have always been a club which just doesn’t provide the players an opportunity to play but has taught their players how to play. They have created a handful of football masterminds who are managers today namely Pep Guardiola, Luis Enrique, Julen Lopetegui, Laurent Blanc, Phillip Cocu, Ronald Koeman and many others.
Even the most bitter rival of Barcelona, Jose Mourinho, had a short stint at the club as an assistant coach to Sir Bobby Robson in the late 1990’s. The club achieved a rare feat when four of the teams in the quarter-finals of the 2014-15 UEFA Champions League were managed by their former players (Pep Guardiola- Bayern Munich, Luis Enrique- Barcelona, Julen Lopetegui- Porto and Laurent Blanc- Paris Saint-Germain).
Don’t play to win, play well to win
When you watch Barcelona play the game, the players enjoy doing it the Barcelona way. They play the game akin to how a musician conducts the orchestra to create a symphony. By doing so, the results just fall in place and there is hardly anything specific that they do in order to win the game except playing it beautifully.
As the saying goes, it is better to travel well and not reach the destination than to not travel well and reach the destination. Well, we are here talking about a club that travels well and reaches the destination.
Success stories
Leaving aside all other factors, it is the way Barcelona have dominated world football over the years which is the icing on the cake. You have teams that play beautiful football but don’t seem to churn productive results while you have teams which play only to churn out the results and do not really pay attention how they win.
But with Barcelona you know they will win and thereby provide a visual treat to the audience. The biggest misconception with every fan of Barcelona is if he would be a ‘glory hunter’, a term that has been coined to refer to those fans who merely go after teams that win trophies.
At the end of the day, it is the success that gives any fan the final push to give his everything and anything to the club. The Catalan giants have given this in abundance to their fans, thereby cementing a place in the heart of every Cule. As the slogan goes, FC Barcelona: Mes que un club.
