Beyond Barça: Football in Catalunya

In professional sports — as in society at large — the dichotomy between those with and without money grows increasingly wide. Within the top European leagues, there is only a small clutch of uber-wealthy (often questionably funded) teams who have the financial means to sign up the cream of the world’s football talent, leaving everyone else to scrabble around for whatever scraps they can get their hands on.

Football in Spain has long been seen as the epitome of this gaping financial chasm, as dominated by the two biggest clubs: Real Madrid and Barcelona. Consequently, many people are tempted to ask themselves, “If these two teams have the most money, the best players and they win everything, then what’s the point in supporting anyone else?”

It is easy to see why Catalans might struggle to notice that football is actually played outside the hallowed walls of the Camp Nou.

But speak to fans of any smaller team and you’ll quickly learn that, for them, football isn’t about the big picture. It’s those granular moments — the unbridled passion of a last-minute winner, the glory of a victory against all the odds — that keep fans of even the most beleaguered clubs going to matches week in, week out.

Here in Catalunya, the state of club football exists as a microcosm of the issues the game faces at large in Spain. A football behemoth, Barça (FC Barcelona) dwarfs other clubs not just in the region but in the world over. Its myriad honors and titles break records, its managers changed the very philosophy of the European game, it produced arguably the greatest team of the modern era from 2008-2012 and its current star, Lionel Messi, is likely to go down as the finest to ever play the game.

Combine this with its status as a symbol of Catalan culture and independence and it is easy to see why Catalans might struggle to notice that football is actually played outside the hallowed walls of the Camp Nou.

However, Barça’s claim to be “més que un club” doesn’t mean that it is any more important to its fans than the other Catalan teams in Spain’s football pyramid are to theirs. And if you are looking for an electric match day atmosphere, Camp Nou, so often riddled with nonplussed tourists, might not actually live up to the expectations that its resplendent blaugrana architecture anticipates.

Football is as much defined by its lesser teams and its grassroots as it is by its elites, and Catalunya is no different. It is a region of rich football history (the first place in Spain to be introduced to the game by British expats in the 19th century) and there are a host of other Catalan clubs from La Liga down to the Tercera Divisió who also deserve your attention.

Immovable and Irresistible: Espanyol and Girona

Since its inception in 1928, Spain’s highest league, now known internationally as “La Liga,” has featured eight Catalan clubs and there are three currently playing in La Liga’s 2018-19 season. At the time of writing, Barça sits in its customary spot at the top of the table and, bar a late surge from Real Madrid, it looks like the team is going to add to its 25 league titles this year.

Make your way down the table (keep going a bit) and then you’ll find Espanyol, the “other” team here in Barcelona. It can sometimes feel like Espanyol is as much defined in opposition to Barça as a team in its own right.

Ex-president of the club Joan Collet stressed in 2015 that politically, Espanyol “no tiene ninguna ideología” (has no ideology); its unionist sympathies are a long-running trope in contrast to many Barça fans’ support of Catalan independence. While this doesn’t endear the club to many people, Espanyol has a decent stadium just outside the city, with lower ticket prices than at Camp Nou.

If you are looking for a top-level Catalan team who plays exciting, attacking football, Girona is it.

The third Catalan club currently plying its trade in La Liga is a relative newcomer to Spain’s top football table: Girona FC. The club played for the first time in the top flight in the 2017-18 season, but its rise has been nothing short of remarkable. Last year it finished 10^th in the league, shaking up the norms of Iberian football to become the most successful La Liga debutant in history.

If you are looking for a top-level Catalan team who plays exciting, attacking football, Girona is it. While Espanyol has been mired by two decades of mid-table stasis in La Liga, Girona feels like a team growing into itself, and the club has even turned its once apathetic town into avid fans of the blossoming team.

After a strong start this season, Girona was without a win since December, reaching what was hopefully this year’s nadir on February 9, with an abject loss at home to bottom of the table, Huesca. This was hardly the best preparation coming into its match on February 17 against Real Madrid at the Santiago Bernabéu, probably one of the most daunting away trips in world football.

However, to the folly of anyone trying to predict a club’s rise or fall, Girona managed to beat Madrid 2-1, an unthinkable result given both clubs’ recent form. Videos of exultant Girona fans waiting for their team’s bus to return back to Catalunya says all you need to know about what this victory meant for the club. (It was a particularly sweet win for Girona fans, too, given they were knocked out by Madrid in the quarter-finals of Spain’s cup competition, the Copa del Rei, only a couple of weeks prior.)

En route to the last eight of the Copa (where Catalan sides made up almost half of the remaining teams), Girona showed the kind of form that it dazzled La Liga with last year. Not only did it beat Deportivo Alavés, who has been flying this season, but it defeated Diego Simeone’s notoriously stubborn Atlético Madrid in the last sixteen, a famous win that will live long in the club’s memory.

The Magic of the Copa: UE Sant Andreu

Girona wasn’t the only underdog to face Atlético in the Copa this season, and neither was it the only Catalan one. Arguably the most fascinating story from the Copa came from a small amateur club based in Barcelona called Unió Esportiva Sant Andreu, who plays in the Tercera División, the fourth rung down of Spain’s football divisions.

Only the victors of the previous season’s regional Tercera groups get the chance to play in the Copa. Of the smaller teams, Sant Andreu progressed the furthest of all, setting up two legs against Atlético Madrid in the round of the top 32 teams.

“The two games were an incredible experience for the club and the squad,” says Roger Graells, part of Sant Andreu’s management. “Last season we qualified for the Copa del Rei in second place (Espanyol B couldn’t make it) in the final minutes of the last game. We were really looking forward to competing and, in the three previous rounds, we eliminated three teams who were ranked better than us — Cornellà, Gernika, Calahorra — after each match went into extra time. Sant Andreu competed in the two games against Atlético and it was a shame that we didn’t have better results.”

Unfortunately, words like “frenzy” and “excitement” aren’t used nearly enough in reference to the Copa del Rei these days.

Despite losing 1-0 at home and 4-0 away, the very fact of competing in these matches was a thrill for the club. It gave local Sant Andreu fans the opportunity to see their team face off with some of the most promising young players in world football, including Atlético’s Thomas Lemar and Gelson Martins, which is exactly what competitions like the Copa are all about.

Furthermore, the experience gave Sant Andreu a national platform and its fans a thrilling day out in Madrid. “About 200 fans went and enjoyed a great game [for the away leg],” Roger continued. “At times you could hear them get all riled up in the upper decks of the Wanda, and the frenzy that came with Atlético got them even more excited. Despite the outcome, Sant Andreu’s great playing in the first part of the game had the fans fantasizing about evening the score at any given moment.”

Unfortunately, words like “frenzy” and “excitement” aren’t used nearly enough in reference to the Copa del Rei these days. As with similar cup competitions all over Europe, fans and clubs alike appear increasingly disinterested in the outcome until at least the semi-finals. Even then, many bigger clubs choose to prioritize the league or European competitions over the national ones.

Jordi Vella, part of the management of Barcelona-based Tercera Divisió Club Esportiu Europa (CE Europa), thinks that bigger teams tend to treat the competition a little differently. He said, “Some compete with the idea of winning the Copa del Rei and others take advantage of it to justify the players who don’t play much in the league games.”

While it’s a shame that a such an historic competition could be losing some of its prestige, it does at least provide examples of other Catalan clubs excelling at a national level, with plenty of on-field passion, local pride and the potential to knock bigger clubs down a notch or two.

“It’s an experience unlike almost any other for a club like ours and for our players,” continued Roger of Sant Andreu. “Playing against a top-level professional team is a huge motivator, as is going to a stadium like Wanda. It’s a unique opportunity to enjoy playing there, from start to finish.”

The Kids Are Alright: CE Europa

Head north from Vila de Gràcia and its quaint narrow streets open up to busy boulevards, full of noise, lights and cars. It’s an urban setting — not the kind of place you would expect to find a football stadium.

But amid the throng of buildings, nestled in between two particularly imposing high rise towers, lies the Nou Sardenya, home of CE Europa. It would be easy to miss during the week, but on match days you can definitely hear it roar.

Like Sant Andreu, Europa is an amateur football club based in Gràcia that plays in the Tercera Divisió. It doesn’t generally make it into the Copa del Rei, so you won’t ever see the team playing on TV (you probably wouldn’t recognize its players if they walked past you on the street), but it is a proud club with a long history and was one of the 10 founding members of La Liga.

Today, Europa sits three divisions, five leagues and 126 places below city rivals FC Barcelona, but that doesn’t stop it from competing at a junior level. A David-versus-Goliath matchup provides a compelling backdrop for a game of football and even more so when it’s also a city derby. So when CE Europa’s Juvenil A team played its FC Barcelona counterparts on February 9, it was one of those days when the Nou Sardenya became a little less inconspicuous.

Nou Sardenya doesn’t have the pristine facilities and lucrative corporate sponsorships of the Camp Nou, but it does have a gritty, unkempt charm that you only tend to find at smaller clubs.

“The Nou Sardenya, even though it’s a stadium that’s in desperate need of repair, breaths soccer,” said Jordi of CE Europa. “And for those who think Tercera Divisió soccer is boring and poor quality, I invite them to consider the teams in higher divisions, who they see on TV every week, and are surely not much better than what they could see at Sardenya.”

Judging by the febrile atmosphere around the packed ground before kick off between the two Juvenil teams, it was clear many of Europa’s fans agree with him. Europa’s youngsters gave a valiant effort, but ended up losing 1-0 to Barça’s team of superstars-in-waiting, the current crop of elite young athletes who will soon graduate from the famed “La Masia” academy.

The game itself was the kind that gets fans and players of yesteryear extolling the virtues of real football graft. Thundering tackles, lightning quick breaks and a red card when tempers spilt over as the game drew to a close caused the old stadium to creak with the shrieks, stamps and cries of the crowd.

And all this from a game between two junior sides. No, the Nou Sardenya doesn’t have the pristine facilities and lucrative corporate sponsorships of the Camp Nou, but it does have a gritty, unkempt charm that you only tend to find at smaller clubs. As Jordi says, “being a fan of Europa is demanding, but it’s a loyal and understanding club, unlike most others.”

What this game also proved is that there are plenty of places where you can watch high-quality football without shelling out upwards of €70 for a ticket. That beneath the lofty heights of the region’s expensively assembled, supremely decorated first team, there lies a wealth of other clubs who will be happy to host you for a thrilling day of live sport. That club football not only exists, but thrives in Catalunya beyond Barça.