Fans miss Messi, Ronaldo in El Clasico
Fans reflect on an El Clasico without Messi, Ronaldo
Barcelona coach Ernesto Valverde has warned his team to beware a “wounded” Real Madrid side as the hosts head into today’s Clasico at the Camp Nou without the injured Lionel Messi.
“We know what Madrid are like, they are more dangerous when they are wounded,” said Valverde at a press conference on the eve of the game.
His opposite number Julen Lopetegui is under enormous pressure ahead of the match, with Real having taken just one point from their last four games in La Liga.
Unconvincing win
Madrid ended a five-match winless run in all competitions by beating Viktoria Plzen 2-1 in the Champions League in midweek, but that unconvincing performance may have only delayed the inevitable for Lopetegui.
Defeat at the Camp Nou and Real would be seven points behind their great rivals at the top of the table. Conversely, though, a win may just buy Lopetegui some time, and Barcelona do come into the game without Messi after he suffered a fractured arm against Sevilla last weekend.
Valverde has not forgotten the promise the reigning European champions showed when they took 13 points from a possible 15 to start the season.
“There were moments at the start of the season when Madrid were brilliant in possession and in terms of the pressure they put teams under,” he warned.
“They are now on a bad run, but they also have enough about them to overcome these things, just as we do with the absence of Messi.”
It will be the first Clasico without either Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo since 2007. “Cristiano was an important player, but we all need to look forward, that is what we are doing and I imagine that is what Madrid are doing,” added Valverde.
The 54-year-old, who spent two years as a Barcelona player, also insisted that the meeting of Spain’s two fiercest rivals has not lost any of its aura without the two greatest players of the current era.
“The Clasico existed before that. The Clasico has always been the Clasico, and there were even flying piglets,” he said, with a reference to a meeting of the sides in 2002, when Barcelona fans threw a pig’s head at Luis Figo, their former idol who had crossed the divide to join Real in 2000. “There has always been tension.”
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 on Sunday.” 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 semifinal 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 Camp Nou, 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.
Diehard Messi fans
Some 8,000 km away in White horse, 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.
Myles and his girlfriend paid €500 (Dh2095) each for tickets to this Clasico. Their 19hour flights, each way, cost a combined Canadian $1,600 (Dh4,485).
“To say I was shell-shocked when he got injured is an understatement,” Myles says. It is not about the money. “In a scenario where it was guaranteed Messi would play I would have paid north of $2000 for tickets.”
When Messi stayed down clutching his broken right arm against Sevilla, it was a blow for Barca and thousands of fans who hoped to watch him dazzle in today’s El Clasico.