Just yesterday, I was walking in Ensanche when I intersected the path of two young families. The sun was shining for the first time in weeks, there was a light breeze and I could feel the last remnants of winter. I was happy. There was a little boy around three-years-old grinning as he grabbed the hands of his mother to his left and his older sister´s to his right. He was smiling with glee, all buttoned up in his new French-style Spring jacket. How ecstatic he felt swinging his arms back and forth being sheltered by the two.
It was then that I happened to hear another little boy yell, ¨Bartha¨. And then I heard it again, ¨Bartha¨. I turned around and could see that this second young boy, a few years older, had seen an emblem of the Real Madrid football team on the three-year-old´s belongings. He was actually yelling, ¨Barça,¨ which refers to the great football club FC Barcelona, but Spaniards in Castilian Spanish change the ¨c¨ to a ¨th¨ sound. The four children began shouting back and forth… ¨Barça,¨ and the other shouted, ¨Real Madrid¨. ¨No, Barça,¨ and the other, ¨Real Madrid¨. And then I heard, ¨Valencia¨.
It´s quite funny that at such a young age children grow an addiction to sports. Was it their father or uncle or mother who influenced them to like one team or the other. Or is it just instinctual? My Spanish nephew is a huge Barça fan and his father roots for Real Madrid. They battle it out, back and forth, every game they share together. Since he was seven he could recite stats of the different players and he would share a special moment with his father when they went to a local bar to have tapas and watch the games live.
It reminds me of the 80´s watching my father sit on his chocolate brown lazy-boy chair emotional over the Washington Redskins when they were a championship team with Joe Theismann as quarterback. My dad used to battle it out with his friends who were Dallas Cowboy fans when they came over. Go Skins!
…lovely memories for any family. How lucky it is to share these special moments together. It proves that simple things like football, beer and… family are all you need to be happy.
HISTORY (wikipedia summary)
Fútbol Club Barcelona – Founded in 1899 by a group of English, Swiss and Catalonians, Barça is a professional football club, based in Barcelona, Spain. It is the second richest club worth almost $2.4 billion and it is the first Spanish club to win the La Liga, Copa del Rey, Champions League, Spanish Super Cup, UEFA Super Cup and FIFA Club World Cup in 2009. They collected 14 trophies in 4 years and some think it is one of the greatest team of all time.
Real Madrid Club de Fútbol is a professional football club based in Madrid and was founded in 1902. In 1920, King Alfonso XVIII added the royal crown as its emblem. Today, it is known as the richest football club worth over $3.3 billion and has won a record of nine European Cups, three Intercontinental Cups, two UEFA Cups and one UEFA Super Cups. On April 16th, Real Madrid won the 2014 Copa del Rey against Barça 2-1.
