Barcelona’s new chapter begins in familiar surroundings as life returns to Camp Nou | Barcelona

Tright here was no signal of Laszlo Kubala or Johan Cruyff, their statues nonetheless safely packed in storage, and Lionel Messi had sneaked in alone below cowl of darkness a fortnight earlier than however FC Barcelona’s present gamers have been lastly again on the Camp Nou as 45,157 followers and a handful of males in high-vis jackets and arduous hats watched them return house 909 days later. It was like previous occasions.

Athletic Membership, splendid company, had not received right here in 30 matches and after two years away they didn’t win this time both, the final of 4 objectives conceded quickly adopted by fireworks on a day of reunion.

“Montjuic was the start; the Camp Nou is the place historical past can be written,” Lamine Yamal had posted throughout the week as Barcelona ready to return after two years as non permanent tenants on the Olympic stadium. Now right here he was, beaming within the north-east nook, the place one of many stands was full and the opposite empty and nonetheless incomplete, as Ferran Torres polished his boot.

The 18-year-old referred to as to mark a brand new period at this stadium had simply produced a second extraordinary help for Torres to attain his second and Barcelona’s fourth, Robert Lewandowski and Fermin López getting the others.

“It was a great day for us,” stated Hansi Flick when it had ended, not a lot due to how Barcelona performed as due to what all of it meant: a brand new period and an previous one too, symbolised by that second and plenty of others. Lamine has performed right here earlier than – as soon as, for seven minutes, when he was 15 – however 5 of Barcelona’s starters had not. As for the coach, the primary time he got here, he had simply been sacked by a 3rd division crew however had regarded on the house bench and thought that in the future he would sit there. Right here, on the primary day of the remainder of their lives, he had. “Something is feasible,” he stated.

It had been “historic”, Flick stated, which is the way it was purported to be. Ferran’s end for the fourth aim had been just about the final contact of Barcelona’s first match right here since Could 2023; the primary had been reserved for Juan Canela Salamero and Jordi Penas i Iberri, the oldest membership members capable of attend.

Wheeled to the touchline by Penas and Carles Naval, Barcelona’s delegate for 39 years, Canela took the honorary kick-off. He had with him the ticket from the inauguration of this enviornment on the pageant of La Mercè in September 1957. Nobody had the ticket from the re-inauguration half a century later; entry right here was digital. On the morning of the return, round a thousand remained, priced between €199 and €588. By kick-off, which, just like the return house, was late, they’d all been bought.

That day in 1957, 1,500 folks carried out an enormous Sardana and 10,000 doves have been launched; this time, the primary part of the Camp Nou rebuild lastly full a 12 months delayed, there was a DJ, and the town choir belting out the membership’s anthem, a variety of vacationers, and a four-nil win.

Above all, for many there was a type of consolation, familiarity, the sense that this may very well be each a manner again to the place they have been and a brand new starting. The Camp Nou rebuild shouldn’t be accomplished: solely three sides of the decrease two tiers are open, permitting for a most 45,401 of the 105,000 it can finally maintain, and at occasions, in reality, the day of fiesta was just a little flat, quiet and underwhelming, however Flick stated “it’s a very good feeling to be again right here”, and again is the phrase.

Barcelona had not been allowed to call this stadium after their founder, Joan Gamper, a foreigner and a protestant who had recognized with the Catalan trigger and whose 134th birthday it will have been at this time. And so it grew to become identified merely because the Camp Nou: the brand new floor. Right here then, was the brand new new floor, which though it has Spotify for a surname nonetheless felt very similar to the previous one.

That may most likely change when the third tiers are added and the roof is lifted on, however for now the stadium stays open and the structure of the decrease rings stay, like they have been returning house quite than starting once more, a chunk of their lives given again.

Which got here to outline the day. The identical bars, the identical faces, the neighbourhood of Les Cortes full once more. Between the maternity hospital and the cemetery, there was life once more on the Camp Nou, so in they went. There may be at all times one thing magical about that second if you step out into the stands, seats surrounding you in many colors, inexperienced pitch glowing earlier than you; right here there was one thing acquainted about it too, one thing they’d missed, that broad bowl across the backyard the place Kubala, Cruyff and Messi as soon as performed and Lamine Yamal does now.