Better Barça than Berlin

Although I’m from Berlin, my footballing home is in Barcelona, ​​far away from Hertha or Union. Football is the number one popular sport in Germany; in almost all large cities there are traditional clubs whose fan culture is deeply rooted in the respective city and whose games trigger a tremendous euphoria.

In the capital Berlin of all places, however, this does not seem to be the case. While in most cities there is no question of which association you support, in Berlin it is anything but unusual that the majority of children in a school class look for an association outside of Berlin. Not least because of the lack of sporting success.

And it was the same for me: I had grown fond of the national team, I admired Miroslav Klose and at tournaments there was no question of who I was sticking to. It was completely different at club level, I didn’t have a favorite club.

That changed in first grade when my best friend’s father brought him a jersey from a business trip from Barcelona. It was a blue and red striped soccer jersey with the words “Messi” on the back. A very nice jersey in my opinion. I wanted to know what it was all about, so I started researching the club with the nice jersey. I looked at compilations of the best moves, read some magazines and books, and from then on it was all over me.

Xavi Hernandez and Lionel Messi made a lasting impression

I was deeply impressed by the way they played football, this style of playing, designed for the crushing short passing game and at the same time incredibly elegant, was out of this world. When you combine that with the incomparable, individual quality that the squad possessed and the breathtaking atmosphere that prevailed at Camp Nou, then it was just great fun to watch.

Two players in particular left a lasting impression on me: Xavi Hernandez, the team’s conductor with an understanding of the game like no other in the world, and Lionel Messi, the most gifted player of all time, with an ability to play off his opponents like no other. The first time I bought a jersey other than that of the German national team was in 2014.

It was that of the Spaniard Xavi at the World Cup in Brazil, which ended in a fiasco for his team with the elimination in the group stage and a 1: 5 swat against the Netherlands.

The sporting highlight of my fan career

From there on, my enthusiasm for the club had no hold. I bought my first Barça shirt at the beginning of the 2014/15 season, also with Xavi on my back. When FC Barcelona made the triple, the combination of a national double and the Champions League, in my hometown Berlin the following season thanks to a 3-1 win against Juventus Turin, that was probably the highlight of my fan career from a sporting point of view.

Little by little, I also dealt with the club and what it stands for, the Catalan identity and the club’s motto “Més que un club” or “More than one club”.

In 2018, I had the opportunity to attend a FC Barcelona game at Camp Nou for the first time. It was a home game against Sevilla FC which ended with a 4-2 win in favor of Barcelona, ​​and I hadn’t promised myself too much. It was a magical evening, the chants in the stadium made for goose bumps and pure entertainment was also offered on the field.

Of course, there were ups and downs in the following years, both athletically and off the pitch, especially the departure of my childhood idol Lionel Messi this year was a hard blow for me, but that didn’t change my loyalty and dedication to my club either Heart.