El Clasico! Need I say more? I bet you are all counting down to on Sunday night? Who wouldn’t? It is, after all, arguably one of sport’s greatest events.
Barcelona vs Real Madrid. I get goose bumps just saying that.
At 10pm our time on Sunday, a significant part of the world will be focused on Spain for what is “without doubt the biggest club game on the planet: The clash that stirs the strongest passions; pola-rises families, friends and nations and enjoys the largest TV audience of any football rivalry”.
The quoted words are not mine - though I wish I’d coined them because they sound so smart - but were written by Guillem Balague in his foreword to Richard Fitzpatrick’s book El Clasico. It is a fascinating book, one that gives some good insight into “football’s greatest rivalry”.
In it, Fitzpatrick attempts to not only get to the bottom of what makes this clash such a classic but he also makes an effort to answer a myriad of questions that will make you understand the history of the rivalry and thus appreciate this epic encounter all the more.
Among the questions he also looks at are the effect the rivalry has on the cultural life of Spain; the reason El Clasico consumes the country as well as the extent to which the country’s Civil War is still being played out on the football fields of Barcelona and Madrid.
Of course there are other big rivalries in great club rivalries in Europe. But those remain within the ramparts of their city wall whereas El Clasico’s tentacles - much like our own Soweto derby between Kaizer Chiefs and Orlando Pirates - reach across the land.
And then and beyond to the rest of the world.
Fitzpatrick travelled the width and breadth of Spain to get answers to these questions and more and the result was this well-written book that will leave its reader something of an expert on El Clasico.
So instead of just discussing the effect either of Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo will have in Sunday’s match, you can outdo your mates by telling them about the Boixos Nois and the Ultra Surs - the two clubs’ diehard fans who are easily a subject of a book themselves they are so extreme.
Fitzpatrick tells the story of how the Boixos Nois (Crazy Boys) attacked a Real Madrid bus back in 2010 as it made its way to the hotel in Barcelona forcing the players to flee to the sanctuary of the hotel foyer upon disembarking at their destination from the coach that had some of its windows smashed.
Things used to be much worse though years ago as Fitzpatrick illustrates in many ways.
One of those is the reaction of Barcelona to Luis Figo’s move to the arch enemy, the Portuguese star being termed traitor, mercenary who should be killed as indicated by the fans’ fluttering white handkerchiefs in the wind.
That day Figo, who had already taken 23 of Los Blancos’ 29 corners since he joined took none.
But there had been worse.
In the 1943 Copa del Rey semi-final, for instance, Barcelona beat Madrid 3-0 at home in the first leg and looked to be on their way to the final.
But before they took to the field for the second leg in Madrid, the director of state security, Jose Finaty Esrciva de Romani, dropped into the visiting dressing room to deliver a message.
“Do not forget,” he apparently cautioned “that some of you are only playing because of the generosity of the regime that has forgiven you for your lack of patriotism.”
Madrid duly won the second leg 11-1 and in his match report, Juan Antonio Samranch, who later became the IOC president, wrote: “It was not a question of playing badly or well. Barca simply ended up by not playing at all.
“Individual players were fearful of making even the most innocent of tackles,” he wrote.
They have nothing to be fearful of these days and on Sunday night at Camp Nou, we are sure to be treated to yet another enthralling instalment of the amazing story that is El Clasico.
While you wait for Sunday, 10pm, do yourself a favour and get the book.
Saturday Star