Clasico blow for fans
Messi absence a disaster for his enthusiastic supporters
BARCELONA: Barcelona will miss Lionel Messi today – his goals, his dribbles, his presence as much as anything – but the angst will be gone with the help of three weeks’ rest and a sling.
For the fans that came to see him, not the match or the teams, but him, the disappointment will be harder to shake.
This will be the first Clasico without either Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo since December 2007, when Julio Baptista’s winner was the difference in a 1-0 win for Real Madrid.
There have been 35 games between them since. Messi has lit up more than a few – the hattrick in 2007, the two free-kicks, and that run, leaving five Madrid players for dead, Sergio Ramos twice.
In a stall on Carrer d’Aristides Maillol, lining the western edge of Camp Nou, a vendor stands under a collection of red and yellow scarves, behind him pinned up shirts with Messi, 10, on their backs.
“We will sell Messi shirts here even 20 years after he retires,” he says. “Nothing will change today.” What does a Clasico mean without Messi? “No hay”. “There isn’t one”.
Which isn’t true of course. It was 1902 when Barcelona first appeared in Madrid for the semi-final of the Copa Coronacion. There have been 199 of them without Messi and there will be many more after he has gone.
But in this current era, this fixture, at Nou Camp, is about him more than anyone else. Everyone wants to witness Messi once, still more on the biggest stage.
When he stayed down clutching his broken right arm against Sevilla last weekend, it was a blow for Barca but a blow too for the thousands that thought they were eight days away.
More than 8,000km away in Whitehorse, northern Canada, Barcelona fan Myles was one of those watching. He has ‘MESSI’ as his car number plate. His six years supporting means he has only ever known the club with Messi in it.
“I consider myself a big Barca fan but I have a special obsession with Messi,” he says.
The sense of time running out increases the stakes for these faraway fans. Messi turned 31 in June and this next meeting is a sneak peak into the future. Not long away, supporters will wonder if every Clasico could be his last.
As the biggest teams are increasingly watched more on screens than from stands, by supporters with no tangible link to their cities, the most recognisable players are becoming just as iconic as their clubs.
When one website advertised tickets on Twitter for last weekend’s game between Barca and Sevilla, the bait was catching Messi in full flow. “Sevilla are one of #Messi’s favourite victims,” it read.
Real are too. He has 26 goals in 38 games against them, but not today. For his opponents, relief. For some of his fans, regret, and the hope the chance will come again.