El Clásico is the game that represents Spanish domestic tensions more succinctly and theatrically than anything else. When Real Madrid play Barcelona, questions of identity and independence come to the forefront, and emotions can range from gentle rivalry to outright hatred.
When football is played in Barcelona, the fiercely independent Catalan capital, things just happen. Whether you’re the ‘traitor’ Luis Figo getting a pig’s head thrown at you for switching sides, Cristiano Ronaldo telling 90,000 Barcelona fans to calm down, or Lionel Messi scoring his debut hat trick against Real in 2007 (the first of many hauntings for the club), El Clásico is the perfect 90 minutes to check in on some of the most volatile aspects of Spain. In essence, it is the Spanish financial and political capital, Madrid, facing off against the stridently separate Catalonia.
In the men’s game, El Clásico is beautiful, but it also showcases the ugliest, dominantly masculine side of football fandom. The women’s Clásico is in its infancy, with Real Madrid only having had a women’s club since 2020. Three years on, at the Estadio Olímpico Lluís Companys, 39,000 spectators arrived to experience the part football, part psychodrama of Spanish national identity.
Women’s football, in 2023, is not a sleeping giant, but a giant. Ticket sales have been higher than ever, English players are household names. In Spain, Barcelona Femení have excelled ahead of their contemporaries in La Liga, now home to a vintage side, including Ballon d’Or winners Alexia Putellas and Aitana Bonmati, as well as former Manchester City heavyweights Lucy Bronze and Keira Walsh.
Barcelona Femení is a side that steamroll teams in the league, and are outright favourites to win the Champions League. They are the only side to truly challenge the hegemony of Lyon’s women’s side, who have dominated European women’s football for the last 10 years.
My best friend lives in Barcelona on his year abroad, and so for the cheapest of flights (€84 return), a ticket to the game (€36), and a floor in L’Hospitalet de Llobregat (€0, or a copy of The Mancunion + the price of the tapas I insisted on paying to thank him), I escaped the shivering beer gardens and increasingly bigger scarves of South Manchester to get some winter sun, culminating in a visit to the site of the 1992 Olympics where the Barcelona men’s team play their home games while the Camp Nou is redeveloped.
Everything about the experience is a work of art. A walk through the Montjuïc palace gardens gets you to the stadium, as the midday sun is suspended on a canvas of the richest yet lightest of blues. The most fashionable of young adult football fans rubbed shoulders with seasoned, elderly Barcelona fans and families. The fixture is steeped in history, yet given a fresh face by the women’s game and the values it holds. The diverse and huge crowd proved that all facets of football fandom can coexist given a compassionate setting.
The match itself began with tight, intricate passing sequences on the wings, led by Aitana Bonmati, employing an advanced form of tiki-taka, the famous Spanish system of passing that brought dominance of the Spanish national team across two World Cups and one European Championship. The “death by a thousand passes” mentality made a Barcelona goal feel inevitable, and it wasn’t long until the breakthrough came, with Bonmati lashing the ball into the bottom corner. Despite goalkeeper Misa Rodriguez getting a hand to it, it just went straight through her.
The floodgates opened. In the first half an hour, Barcelona could have been 4-0 from all styles of goal, whether that be from a perfectly threaded pass from the defensive line that went just wide from Paralluelo, or narrow misses on the break from Caroline Graham Hansen. Barcelona Femení can get to you from anywhere. It didn’t feel like they were wasting chances, because there was always another one. Players began to show their confidence, and shots on goal just kept coming. One way traffic.
Close chances included Graham Hansen’s lob shot, that somehow eluded the top left corner of goal, and young star Vicky López fluffing her lines from a deflected Esmee Brughts cross. A late goal from Claudia Pina and a redemption from López made stoppage time party time, and after a hearty rendition of the Barcelona anthem sealed off a state-of-the-nation address from Barcelona Femení.
This Barcelona side is already one of modern football’s iconic club teams. Arsenal’s Invincibles, Real Madrid’s Galacticos, Pep Guardiola’s Barcelona, Manchester United’s Class of 92; this incarnation of Barcelona Femení is a vintage side. On top of this, what they have done for fans, with almost 39,000 turning up to the match will only add to their myth. A crowd populated by young women have visceral, iconic heroes to look up to.
As the world of football becomes more divisive by the day, it’s events like this that not only gives one hope, but shows that there is hope. It’s easier to be negative, but watching Barcelona Femení makes positivity feel as inevitable as Aitana Bonmati’s name on the scoresheet.
