My game of the year: Aura beats luxury

The first working day after summer vacation starts with a business trip. There are worse destinies. After the draw and consultation with the colleagues who make which game, the anticipation rises daily. Hard to believe, but I had previously neither in the legendary stadium of the FC Barcelona nor the city itself. High time for a Mittachziger, actually not to apologize.

Barcelona welcomes me in mid-September with summer weather. The three-day trip is something like a short-term liberation from the lead Corona time. In the preseason, the FC Bayern has consistently contested ghost games, except a few hand-picked spectators on the last match day, by the way as the only Bundesliga. I could now raise selfish the job advantages of these lots: later arrival, because nothing is going on, no traffic jam around the stadium, again quickly gone away. The reality, however, frustrated increasingly. Yawning emptiness in the grandstands, zero mood, which, after initial interest someday also annoying shouting of the players and coach that echoes through the stadiums.

Everything is different in Barcelona. The Catalans are COVID-19 damaged, many people also carry on the street mask. But the incidence is low in mid-September, after all 40,000 spectators, the game may look at the first group game day of the Champions League. For me, it is the best study's best stadium since a felt eternity, concrete: a routine Friday evening in February 2020, when FC Bayern struck the SC Paderborn spectacularly 3: 2 before sold-out house. After that came the pandemic.

40,000 are not as great as 99,000 when the Camp Nou is sold out, but always better than everything the months before. And yes, I feel the aura of this place: Cuff, Maradona, Pep, Messi. Her spirit floats in the actual dilapidated, from the time-fallen stadium, which can not compete with the temples of the Bundesliga in terms of equipment. But Aura beats luxury and Bavaria FC Barcelona.

A bad cartoon former strength

In the past, this field for the Munich must have been a place of horror, at the 0: 4 under Kinsman 2008, also at the 0: 3 in the semi-final 2015. In the present, the proud Catalans are only a bad cartoon of former strength. Thomas Müller sets the foundation stone to Bavaria's start-up victory after a phase of scanning with a faked shot, Robert Lewandowski lays twice in the second half.

I feel like to be late for a few years. Instead of Messi, Xavi, Invest, I see Long, Frenzy and Luck, Delay or Pedro twice. No bad names, with a view of Barça History Of course second goods. Even the aging banquets and pique change nothing at the overall impression. Nevertheless, I definitely want to return if better times will be upgraded: sporty for Barça, pandemic for all of us. When I see the Bayern against Wolfsburg on the last round game day in the empty Allianz Arena, I think wistfully to Barcelona.