Mourinho's Madrid

Day 30 – After arriving around lunchtime into Madrid we quickly checked into Flat5Madrid to a surprisingly cheap stay at 35 EUR a night. After dumping our bags, and our ever growing shopping back it was off to hit the streets of Madrid. As we didn’t really know why we were in Madrid in the first place this was no easy task! After wandering aimlessly for a little while I took a gamble and decided we should head to the Mercado (very similar to our Markets) for lunch. For the regular readers this was a gamble, something that I’d chosen to do, normally ended up in disaster! But Alas! Success. Arriving at Mercado de … We found a lovely enclosed market with an enormous range of tapas available. We sampled freely with a highlight being the goat’s cheese and apple focaccia and the duck sandwich.

The tapas from markets - Good photo composition by head assistant photography Mark

Not wanting to tempt fate further I absolved myself of all responsibilities in regards to deciding what to do for the afternoon! The afternoon was spent wandering back through the shops (seemingly our favourite European pastime!). Some crazy lottery is on at the moment here because one particular agency had queues that must’ve been a kilometre long stretching around and around the shops. It’s killing us to know what it is/was but our grasp of the Spanish language didn’t lend itself to finding out. After an afternoon rest and blog back at the hotel it was off to sample the famed Madrid night life.

BUT it was a Monday… Katrina set me up by suggesting we come back to this cool looking restaurant if nothing else took our fancy. Not finding anything ground-breaking we returned. It was Vegetarian/Vegan… What’s the point? But in all seriousness the meal was lovely, if different, with a goat’s cheese pizza entrée and a vegie burger for main, whilst Katrina shared the pizza, but isn’t a fan of goat’s cheese (revenge) and had an interesting cold ravioli main. Good work Vegetarian restaurant. Afterwards we searched high and low for a drink but nothing either a) took our fancy b) was open c) was open yet (maybe we were too early for the Madristas!). So it was an early (European early, 11:30pm) night!

Day 31 – We enjoyed a rest and went down to Starbucks for coffee and some free Wi-Fi before a free walking tour by our hotel. Unfortunately returning to the hotel at 11am as told by reception the day before, we were told the tour left at 10:30! So anyway we were on our own again for the day. Not all was lost with this giving us a chance to duck out to the Stadio de Bernabou (Real Madrid’s home ground) to buy me a ticket to that night’s champions league fixture (but more on that later).

Me with my Champion's league ticket!

Again with Madrid as our oyster we spend the day wandering aimlessly around the city, down to the biggest unknown fountain ever (anyone know what it is?). Then past the palace to see some sort of officials leaving for the day with full military send of/change of the guard type action. A lovely lunch of Lomo (a Spanish pork burger with cheese and peppers for me) and vegetable soup for Katrina (now I write all this down, maybe she’s going vego on me…) was had in a back street somewhere. Once again shopping at one of the big department stores where we both found jackets that we liked but just couldn’t bring ourselves to buy/pack/carry/send home!

The unknown fountain, no signs, not on any map...

The Spanish Government plotting against everyone else? or running from financial turmoil?

I retired for a nap in preparation for the night’s late kick off (20:45 champions league kick off) whilst Katrina just surfed the web etc. Katrina joined me for dinner at a place which became known as ‘chips and…’ as you could get every kind of meat you wanted served with chips for under 10 EUR. I had a snitchzel (a little taste of home… yes I get the irony when it’s German) and Katrina a salmon fillet (with chips of course!). For anyone looking for it in Madrid, it’s actually called Oskars.

Night 31 – The Bernabou!!!!!!!!

Well, quite by good fortune rather than good planning, the soapbox was back where it should be, watching football, the second game in less than 4 days! This time it was a ‘dead rubber’ champion’s league fixture between Real Madrid and Dynamo Zagreb. Whilst the result was unimportant, and it wasn’t the strongest Madrid line up to take the field (no Ronaldo, no Kaka, reserve goal keeper in goals etc.), it certainly didn’t disappoint!

The bernabou in lights!

'Baby' Madrid as was the headline...

The game started at a frantic pace and before some people had even taken their seats it was 3-0, in under 8 minutes. Madrid were a combination of very clinical and Zagreb very poor. There are quite often early chances in football but due to either a) bad early touches or b) good luck they are very rarely converted, especially 3 in 8 minutes. From then on the game was over and you could have forgiven (for once) Mourinho (Madrid’s coach) for ‘parking the bus’ as the saying goes in football. But to his and the Madrid players credit they didn’t and what followed was an absolute master class!

Zagreb kept turning over cheap ball in midfield both due to strong tackling from a dominant Madrid midfield especially Xavi Alonso, and just poor decision making when attempting to play out from the back. The poor Russian manager spent the whole night in the rain screaming at his players. At one point when Madrid went up 4-0 before the 30^th minute I thought he was actually going to pull his right back from the game when he instructed his bench to warm up and exchanged ‘encouraging’ words with him!

As much as it pains me to admit it, Mourinho is indeed brilliant, whether or not he is really ‘the special one’ only history and titles will tell us, however one thing I will note is something about the way Madrid played on this night. It may be my footballing ignorance but I haven’t seen a team play with their right and left backs interchanging with the two holding midfielders at will. It is a joy to watch and I imagine a nightmare to play against. Whilst the Dutch ‘total football’ I believe allowed for players all over the park to cover for each other, as should be the case in any professional (or amateur for that matter) setup, with some amount of interchange, I have never seen what I saw Madrid play. It creates the opportunity for more overlaps than simple wingbacks and doesn’t leave you as exposed as playing with a back 3. It also I imagine, enables you to ‘park the bus’ when the need arises as you haven’t sacrificed either a back 4 for a 3, or 2 holding midfielders for 1, but still generate massive amounts of attacking options going forwards. Maybe it’s old news to the more football educated, but to me it was brilliant!

To their credit the Zagreb fans, high in the eaves of the stadium, helped create an amazing atmosphere, singing and chanting for nearly 90 minutes. My personally favourite being “you’re not Barcelona! You’re not Barcelona!”

Did I mention it was raining? Well it was and it continued to do so until the half time whistle blew and most of us retired to the comfort of somewhere dry. Not being able to take too many photos on the first half I devised an impromptu lens cover from a coke cup and used my beany to shield the body of the camera, from some (lots) of second half photography. Unfortunately whilst I was still piecing this engineering master piece (modest as ever) together Madrid were already back on the field and 5-0 up (47 minutes in!).

Benzema slotting home number 6...

Mourinho was then spotted in the technical area for the first time of the night prompting insane applause from the Madrid faithful and I took some happy snaps for Bob. I say happy snaps, but for a manager whose team is 5-0 up he was far from it. I suppose you don’t get his results/reputation by being a happy go lucky type of guy!

Mourinho happy when his team goes up 5-0.... ? hate to see him unhappy...

I was lucky enough to see some great play from Madrid including catching both their 6^th goal, and an awesome Benzema bicycle kick (which hit the cross bar) through my coke cup lens! 6-0 in the 80^th minute and I honestly belief Madrid were then victims of their own arrogance. Searching for a 7^th they got caught well by Zagreb on the counter attack and conceded their first goal of the night, this brought a fresh round of cheers from their fans. Not to be out done the Madrid faithful brought on a round of end to end chanting from opposite goal mouths (would love to tell you what was being said…).

The Madrid faithful...

Benzema bicycle 1

Benzema bicycle 2

Benzema bicycle 3... it hit the cross bar... damn...

Zagreb then slotted a scrappy 2^nd home which caused some of the faithful to remove shirts and celebrate like it was an equaliser or even a winner, not 6-2!

The final tally...

Then with the final whistle that was that, a 1.5 string (not 2^nd string, still contained Ramos, Benzema, Alonso etc.) Madrid side had sent an ominous warning to all their opponents (including I might add, Barcelona with an impending Classico coming up). In fairness to Madrid and their fans, I think the atmosphere was better at the Bernabou than it had been at the Nou Camp 4 days earlier, maybe to do with the fixture but also I suspect from the acoustics of the eaves at the Bernabou reflecting much more sound back to pitch level. Also my seats from 6 rows behind the Madrid bench and next to the corporate boxes helped!

But then the moment that I will remember as why nobody likes Real Madrid. After 90 minutes of not heavy but consistent rain, Mourinho and quickly followed by the players exited stage left without so much as a glance to their adoring fans. Ok a few of them gave half hearted claps above their heads, but the majority, heads down retreated into the change rooms. Poor form in my books.

So Madrid, both in football and in city is no match for Barcelona in our books. Worth a night or two, but don’t lose sleep if you miss it! In the words of the Zagreb fans…

You’re not Barcelona! You’re not Barcelona! You’re not Barcelona!

All our love

M&K

Barca the Best!

Days 23 through 30… Barcelona

Hello from a 290 km/h train between Barcelona and Madrid. After initially ragging on Spanish trains, Karma comes back to bite me and we are currently enjoying our nicest high speed of our journey speeding towards to Madrid. We have spent the last week in a lovely apartment in Barcelona, resting, sleeping, shopping and site seeing. Mainly because of our laziness a day by day account for these 8 days wouldn’t really be riveting reading so instead we’ll go site by site/ event by event… Here goes…

Flamenco Night

Our first full day in Barcelona was spent wandering around the city shopping and a trip to the markets where we bought some supplies for breakfast that week but was highlighted by a night at the Flamenco show. A shout out to James and Kel whose Viator voucher we utilised for this lovely night out. The show itself consisted of two solo female dancers and 3 male dancers, one female solo singer accompanied by a full complement of 3 Spanish guitarists and 4 hand clapper/singer men. Flamenco is definitely more like tap dancing than I thought it was, and all being unamplified in a small room the power of their voices, clapping and guitars was amazing. The only downside was not being able to speak Spanish because some of the ballads sounded like really interesting hard breaking stories! But definitely an awesome show much more than what I personally expected! All enjoyed while sipping on a glass of Sangria!

Flamenco!!!

Barcelona’s Gothic Cathedral

Knowing that Barcelona was famous for its cathedral we were surprised to see that it was actually at the end of our street. Unfortunately it wasn’t the famous Sagrada Familia which is ‘the image’ of Barca but was an impressive gothic cathedral none the less. Due to the rain (which would become a semi permanent feature of our week) we were unable to catch the lift up to the roof top. Really all these Gothic era cathedrals are very similar however this one had two interesting features. It is ‘protected’ by 13 white geese which live in the central courtyard who protect the tomb of the 13 year old girl buried there. This girl refused to renounce her Christian faith and was rolled down the street in a barrel of glass and nails, attempted to be burnt at the stake (but the flames shied away form her and instead burnt the roman soldiers) and final crucified refusing still to renounce her faith. The other interesting feature is the choir chapel which accurately predicts the rise of the X-men…

Inside the Cathedral by Katrina Bennett

The X-men pews...

Le Sagrada Familia

Barcelona’s real cathedral. Guided by an impressively detailed audio tour, we wandered through the last public work of well known (to some?) architect Gaudi. Gaudi was a renowned modernist whose life’s work would be this cathedral which he would never see finished. He envisaged the whole design but only completed the pulpit and one of the facades (the gothic nativity façade) before his death. Luckily for the people of the world he left a series of detailed models, sketches and writing instructions on how he saw the completed church. Whilst a lot of this information was destroyed in the Spanish Civil wars the people of Barcelona have continued his life’s work and the church is still under construction. I’m not easily impressed by the religious artefacts of the world however I would urge everyone who reads this to see this building before they die. It is truly breathtaking. Set apart from the typical Cathedral by it’s modernist inspired curved lines and abstract sculptures it is amazing on the outside (the passion façade, the only other completed façade, is a bleak but at the same time detailed account of Jesus’ crucifixion) and only surpassed on the inside by an amazing series of columns which rise from the floor into a ceiling which is designed to create the allusion of a great forest towering over you. Inside all people are welcomed to find a place to pray/meditate/worship or merely contemplate something important to them. I fear that I cannot write anything that would truly do this place justice and all I can say is, go see it!

Le Sagrada Passion Facade

Me with Audio guide, nerding it up

Detail from bronze door on Passion Facade

The 'treetops' inside!

The nativity facade

St Marc and some gold triangle that means something...

Gaudi Parc

Containing Gaudi’s own personal house, two other residencies designed by him, and the famous series of mosaicked chairs and the giant mosaic lizard it is recommended viewing before going to Le Sagrada. Unfortunately we made the mistake of viewing it in reverse order (after Le Sagrada) and whilst impressive, it fell a bit flat compared to what we’d just seen and coupled with the weather (overcast) wasn’t living up the hype!

The Mosaic Chairs

The ‘Cava’ bar experience

At the recommendation of the lady who checked us into our apartment the night after Le Sagrada was spent at a little bar which serves homebrew champagne, known as Cava to the locals. It was an amazing yet crazy experience of being jammed shoulder to shoulder drinking 0.90 EUR cava and playing dinner roulette by pointing at the menu and getting all sorts of warm sandwiches. Lomo was a particularly tasty pork hamburger. It was packed with tourists and locals alike and run by 6 or so Middle aged Spanish dudes who would wave you away if you took too long to order, or couldn’t Spanglish your way to ordering food! Amazing!

Crazy times at the Cava bar

Katrina with Cava and Lomo

Parc Montijuic

Montijuic is a large park located on a hill overlooking the city and the port of Barcelona. After another semi wasted morning spent snoozing and reading a book I’d found in the apartment (which as an aside was an amazing read, called Imperium, by someone Harris) we headed down to the port suburb of Barconalette to catch the cable car across the port to the mountain. With the light fading fast I thought we’d wasted our time but it turns out, much like our wedding photos, low light can create some amazing scenes and the views over the city and the port lit up were quite spectacular. These views were from the Fort atop Montijuic. We walked back down to see the Magic fountain but to our surprise and the other hundreds of people present, the fountain was broken and no announcement was made to this fact, so everyone stood around for a while and then finally we gave up after over hearing a conversation between some police officers.

View from the cable car

View from the fort by night

My arty view of fort and refinery terminal at port

Palace at the tope of the magic fountain backlit

The Nou Camp – Gets it own blog, click here...

Roxette

Katrina attended the start of the Roxette concert while I went to see Barcelona play. I arrived when they started playing ‘must have been lov’e but couldn’t find my way in to the massive venue, Palou de Sant Jordi. Never fear, I made it inside to find half of the venue ‘closed’ (think black drapes hanging halfway down the Sydney Entertainment Centre) but still inside to see them belt out the hits including ‘Joyride’ and ‘She’s Got the Look’ (second encore!). It was a solid if not spectacular performance by an obviously ageing band. It makes sense but didn’t pick that they would have such a large gay following, plus Katrina and I were probably the youngest people there!

Rocking with Roxette

80s much?

The beach and the W bar…

Our last day was spent meandering along the beachside, which whilst nice in the sun, the wind kind of put a cold chill in the air. The guys in the water were very keen, surfing rubbish waves in steamers and booties! The night we retired to the ‘exclusive’ (their word not mine) W bar at the top of 26 odd floors at the end of the port for watermelon martinis. It was very nice and swank (read: expensive) and the view was most impressive, would’ve been nice if it was open in the afternoon when it was still light!

The 'surf' with W bar in the background!

The food…

Couldn’t go past pointing out the obvious that the food we enjoyed all week was nothing short of spectacular! From the simplest Lomo (see cava bar above) to the paella’s, various tapas, gelato and snails on our last night. The Catalans really know how to put on a good feed for a reasonable price! Sangria was a favourite for dinner either in a meal deal or a litre jug…there were many mornings with sore heads from this magical drink! J The fresh chorizo and goat’s cheese from the markets in some farm egg omelettes cooked at home were also a nice touch for breakfast! Whilst hard to find, the churros that we did find was amazing including little individual churros filled with caramel we had on the last day down at the port. Barca has a great international selection for food which is rare in most European countries we’ve been to, Katrina sampled Wok n Walk (twice) to get her Asian kick. It’s definitely the city of food.

Paella and Sangria on Flamenco night

And that was it. We have both really fallen in love with the city of Barcelona, how could you not! The food, the shopping, the atmosphere, the everything! We will defiantly be back (maybe in summer) and cannot recommend this leg of our trip highly enough… get to Barca! NOW!

All our love

M&K!

The Nou Camp... (Two Camp)

Well the Soapbox is back where it belongs, sometimes, being about Football! Whilst the week in Barcelona will be covered elsewhere, this edition is dedicated to two of my favourite events of the week, both around Barcelona FC.

Like a kid in a candy store!!

The Nou Camp Tour

On Thursday we got the metro out to the famous home of Barcelona FC, The Nou Camp, or Camp Nou, depending on your nationality. The tour is self guided with an audio guide and appropriately named the Nou Camp Experience. I must say I wasn’t disappointed!

The first stage is a meander through the Barcelona FC museum, covering everything across all sports (Football, Basketball, roller hockey, Handball and Futsal) from the early 1900’s of the clubs inception all the way through to the current season. Whilst there was way too much information to do it justice here a couple of standouts were the 6 cups of 09/10, the information around the clubs resistance to all of the Spanish dictatorships including the founding presidents murder by one of them (Franco I think) and the amusement of the roller hockey trophies on display alongside over 100 years of football cups. I mean really… Roller Hockey…

The 6 cups!

For those of you not football people reading this, who incidentally won’t make it this far into this post anyway, Barcelona were the first, and far as I’m aware the only club in the professional world to have a ‘reverse’ sponsorship with Unicef where by they donate 0.3% of their revenue each year, over 1.3 million EURs roughly and display Unicef as their major sponsor! Whilst this may be irrelevant to many I think it’s worth noting that with most of the major European clubs riddled with debt it’s a sign of Barcelona’s support and financial stability that allows it to carry out this act.

The other interesting side of the clubs history is its support of all things Catalan. Cataluña is the north east region of Spain which Barcelona is the unofficial ‘capital’, not entirely happy with their incorporation into mainland Spain after the civil wars and WW2 they attempt to maintain their own identity with their own language and flag (and a deep seated resentment of the Spanish capital, Madrid.) Franco attempted to strip the club of its Catalina ties in the 1930’s, changing the clubs name and removing the Catalan flag from the clubs emblem. This was another reason for the founding president’s murder by fascists around the same time, being not only the president of the club but also a member of the left wing political party of the time. Even today, the club is strongly associated with all things Catalan including an ‘international’ played in the early 2000s between Cataluña and Spain.

Then the most amazing thing happened, all the players turned up and we got our photos with a few them, it was amazing…

Katrina and I with Xavi

Me and Carlos... you can call him Mr Puyol...

Another personal favourite was the Obama jersey and thank you letter from the White House. Barca had sent Obama a personalised Jersey to celebrate his election and he had returned a letter of thank you to the club which they have proudly on display. He notes himself as an avid sports fan and thanks the club for their kind gift, he also has a cool signature!

Barcelona's gift to Obama

The thankyou from the man himself!

Next stop was the ground itself. Both from above and below, the ground is impressive, holding a reduced capacity of 100,000 after the UEFA rules enforcing seating for all spectators, down from the 110,000 original capacity. The seats splendid in blue and red with the yellow writing of Barcelona FC on one side and ‘more than a club’ on the other. The day we were there they had the heaters on one side of the ground and the groundsman was busily mowing in the perpendicular cuts of grass across the field, the only ground markings were the Barcelona FC emblem on halfway between the two dugouts.

Mes Que Un Club - More than a club...

From the halfway line... note no halfway line actually present...

Unfortunately only the away dressing rooms were open to the public, but whilst minimalist, would still be the envy of most A-league clubs I would imagine! The chapel was open but not accessible, yes a chapel, on the way out of the change rooms in the tunnel to the field. Not sure what the bigman can do for you by the time you’re ready to walk out on the field, but I suppose it makes sense for the highly religious footballers among us!

Me doing my best South American/Spanish commentators GGGGGGGOOOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!! (field heaters in background)

Last stop on the experience was the multimedia section which whilst if you had all day to make your way through the interactive displays or sit and watch the short films (including a highlights reel of the 6 cups) would be amazing, but with an already bored wife we did a quick brush through and into the best part of the day, the Barcelona MEGASTORE!

Like all big European clubs the merchandise is endless, from G-strings for your partner (male or female) an no I didn’t make Katrina buy one!, all the way to pencil cases, ash trays, shot glasses, socks, shirts, dressing gowns, ponchos and on and on! I showed great restraint and held my self to a Puyol away jersey, a very tasteful scarf and a nice new Nike Golf Barcelona polo.

With my appetite wet, it was back home to fill in the time until Saturday night when the real football display would be on.

Barcelona FC vs. Zaragoza

Parting ways with Katrina (for the first time this trip) two metros back to the Nou Camp early to make sure I could find it and my seat! It had been pissing down rain all day but my purchase of a poncho was as good as any insurance policy to ensure it wouldn’t rain all night! The opponents were Zaragoza, one of Barca’s closest rivals geographically but may as well be in Australia when comparing class!

The game...

I will now digress into my only negative experience in relation to the club. Arriving early as mentioned I went with a hamburgessa (extremely similar to what us Australians call a hamburger) and a beer. The Hamburgessa did not disappoint, however about halfway through my beer I thought, this could be the worst beer I’ve ever tasted… On closer inspection I realised they only sell Estella 0.0% ‘beer’… non-alcoholic. Now before you all cry that I’m an alcoholic or a Bogan or similar, I don’t care that they don’t sell beer, (much like light beer at the cricket) I just care that they don’t advertise that that is what they are selling! Ha ha, but this being the worst thing to happen all night isn’t a bad night at all!

During the warm up, I couldn’t help notice that Messi’s carefree style just looks like laziness at times, he kind of just wandered around, clipped a few balls here and there. Even when the team was sprinting through shuttles he just jogged around, never exerting himself… Amazing that such seemingly little effort would result in such a performance…

Xavi during warm up...

Messi During warm up

The game itself was a clinical display opened by Pique heading the first goal in on 18 minutes from a Barca corner. It was amazing to watch them move the ball around with so much time. The thing that struck me the most was that they seemingly can do most of their possession at walking pace, and only when about to launch an attack do they pick up the tempo. This in contrast to the Roar who I’d watched earlier that morning that really look like they’re at top speed for long parts of the game.

Pique, No. 3 heading in the first goal

Messi who was already making and creating impressive runs with Xavi and Fabregas in midfield then deservedly got a second just before half time. His goal came from the trademark Barcelona play, moving the ball back and forth across half way stretching the defence, once a gap opened, a neat series of 1-2’s a calm finish from Messi. It is truly amazing how few long balls this team plays, every goal kick is played short to Puyol or Pique, most free kicks just tapped to a team mate and get the ball moving again, and even very few long range shots. Most of the attacking plays come from a simple wall 1-2 with the second ball in behind the defence. Zaragoza’s goal keeper did exceptionally well to keep it at 2-0 going in to the break.

Celebrating Messi's goal!

The second half was to be more of the same with Zaragoza rarely threatening and Barca controlling long parts of the game. A third was inevitable although it was an unlikely goal to Puyol who stayed forward after one of only a couple of free kicks which were whipped directly into the box. Whilst Zaragoza dealt with the initial free kick the ball fell to Fabregas who whipped in a ball to the back stick which was centred for Puyol whose initial header was saved but who managed to prod home from the ground in the resulting scrap.

Man love to start the 2nd half

Barca then made two substitutes which if I was an opposition player would’ve made me cry. Just when you think they might lay off the pressure they bring on two no names… David Villa and Andres Iniesta! Obviously being rested for the mid week Champions League fixture against Milan Pep Guidiola needed to get them to stretch the legs out and have a bit of fun. David Villa almost immediately put his mark on the game with the 4^th goal in the 74^th minute. I’ll be honest, the actual goal escapes me but it was no doubt after another characteristic period of possession opening up the defence and Villa showing his natural ability to slot home.

And with that the game was well and truly over, although Barca still managed to created chance after chance and never really let up. Again the Zaragoza keeper without a doubt their man of the match with a series of one on one saves.

Messi weaving his magic, has just beaten two of those defenders!

The happy fan!

So, one off the bucket list, see Barcelona play live! Whilst the crowd was probably ‘only’ 60 to 75,000 it is a very impressive stadium and even 2/3rds full creates a special atmosphere. The European trend to whistle instead of ‘boo’ the opposition is truly deafening, and the cheers not only for goals but just general good play, including playing out from the back, winning back possession and any time someone beats another player is truly a great spectacle.

The team thanking me for coming...

It was then a mad dash back to St Jordi to meet Katrina at Roxette… but that’s covered elsewhere...