The Kindness of Strangers
Well, I thought I had a wild night of soccer fun last week in Germany. But the experience Kate and I just had here in Barcelona still has my head spinning.
Let me set the scene a bit. My favorite soccer team in the world is FC Barcelona. A very close second is Chelsea FC. Of course, these are two of the top 5 or 6 teams in the world, so rooting for them is pretty easy. Right now, the biggest club soccer competition in Europe, the Champions League, is in full swing. This morning, there were 16 teams left. After games from tonight and tomorrow, there will be only eight.
Because the Champions League knockout round pairings are drawn randomly, the teams ranked No. 1 and No. 2 in the world could theoretically be chosen to play each other in this, the Round of 16. Some people would say that is exactly what happened this year when it was announced that FC Barcelona would be matched up against Chelsea FC. I can still remember sitting in my home office in Portland back in December when the pairing was announced, thinking, "Wait a minute... Barcelona vs Chelsea in Barcelona on March 7? I'm gonna be living there by then!"
Daydreams of actually attending the game entered my mind almost immediately. Those daydreams were put to rest over the ensuing months when a bit of research on the Internet indicated the cheapest ticket for a decent seat would cost 500 euros. Now remember, that's euros, so we are talking like $600!
As the weeks passed by and Katie and I made the move over here, I always had March 7 marked off on the little calendar in the back of my brain. Even when the teams played each other in London for the first leg of the home-and-home series, Katie and I made a point to soak up some of the local soccer culture and head to a pub to watch it.
Over the past few days, I checked various CraigsList type web sites here, and still nothing good for less than 500 euros. Seats in the absolute nosebleeds were fetching 350 euros. Nevertheless, Kate and I decided this morning we would head up to the stadium before the game to see what the atmosphere was like. We had no hope whatsoever of actually getting cheap tickets, but we just wanted to see what the scene would be like when two of the world's best teams got together for the rather heated second game of their series. Barcelona had beaten Chelsea 2-1 in London, and the players and particularly the coach in the Chelsea camp were not happy about it. Lots of trash talk and the like in the papers over the past two weeks. Not to mention, it was Chelsea that eliminated Barcelona from last year's competition.
I got caught working a bit late today, so when I finally logged off at 8:15, I was uncertain we'd even have time to make our way via the subway to the stadium in time for the 8:45 kickoff. Even after we walked down La Rambla and were at the top of the steps to the metro station, we asked ourselves one last time if we should really waste our time going to the stadium, or if we should just hit our local pub.
"I've been waiting for this game since December. I know we are just gonna end up watching the game in a pub by the stadium, but I at least want to be nearby when all the fans spill out onto the streets after the game. Let's go," I said.
Sure enough, we got to the stadium just as the teams were being announced. There were still a few tickets being sold by scalpers, but let's just say it was a seller's market. The cheapest ticket I saw sold went for 400 euros; Kate and I had 100 euros between the both of us.
Nevertheless we hung outside the gate just people-watching. Kate has never really been in a ticket-scalping environment, so she thought the whole thing was just the most fascinating social sub-culture. Me, I was more entertained by the pathetic Chelsea fans getting turned away at the gate because they were too intoxicated to be allowed into the stadium. I kept thinking of a sort of sick and twisted MasterCard commercial.
Tickets to the Chelsea-Barcelona soccer game: 500 euros
Flight from London to Barcelona: 200 euros
Hotel room in Barcelona: 150 euros
Not being allowed into the game because you are too drunk to stand: PRICELESS
So after about 15 minutes of this scene, Katie and I were seriously considering leaving for the nearest pub we could find. Afterall, the game had started, and there was no way we were gonna get any tickets for the measly 100 euros we had.
I suppose it might be fair to mention here that it was Kate who said we stay a few more minutes. "I'm having fun watching all this chaos," she said with glee.
Well it's a good thing she insisted.
A minute or two later, a middle-age guy walked up to me with an inquisitive look on his face. I honestly couldn't understand for a moment or two whether or not he was trying to buy tickets, or sell me some. Then I heard the magic word... Carnet.
When I came to Barcelona in 2001, I scalped a carnet from a guy outside the stadium. Carnets are the season passes that the regulars keep all season long. Its a great thing if you are the buyer, because the seller wants it back once you are inside, so they walk through the gates with you, as opposed to some guy handing you a paper ticket, then disappearing before you get the bad news from the ticket-taker that you just bought a fake.
This man proceeded to explain that he was waiting for two friends with their carnets, but that they weren't there yet, so he was going in. I asked him how much he wanted for the carnets, but couldn't understand his answer. Kate's Spanish is better than mine, and even she was confused. I'll never forget what happened next.
The man said he didn't want anything for the tickets at all. "Son gratis." Then he motioned for us to follow him inside.
Once inside, we offered again to pay him something, but our new friend, Simon, wouldn't take one euro from us. He just wanted us to enjoy the game.
Unbelievable.
Then we got to the seats. They were awesome. Lower level, close enough to see the rubberbands in Ronaldinho's hair.
The game was exquisite. This is the second time I have seen Ronaldinho play in person, and he exceeds the hype. The goal he scored tonight has to be one of the best I've seen, not because of just his genius, but because of the brilliance of the entire Barcelona side.
The stadium, which is known as Camp Nou, went bonkers. Everyone around us was howling and hugging. Kate thinks I blew her eardrum when I celebrated by squeezing her tight and accidentally screaming in her ear.
For all my soccer friends out there, find a tape of the goal. I'd say half the team touched the ball as they strung together 10-12 passes bringing the ball up the right side. Henrik Larsson, Samuel Eto'o, and I believe Deco got in the mix and swung the ball across the field about 35 yards away from the Chelsea goal. Suddenly, Ronaldinho knifed in at top speed against the flow of the players and the ball. He took the ball on his foot, fought off a challenge from John Terry, then hammered a shot that Petr Cech barely got a piece of before it found the back of the net. Amazing stuff. I honestly want to find a video of it just to admire the build up and everything.
Chelsea managed to get a penalty in the dying moments to level the game 1-1, but Barcelona's 2-1 victory in London two weeks ago means they won the series 3-2 on aggregate goals.
So Barcelona moves on and I still sit here amazed by the turn of events that have been bestowed upon Kate and I tonight. When the game ended, Kate and I hugged Simon and thanked him profusely. He was humble right to the end, but I think somewhere inside he was happy to see us to ecstatic. He could have easily sold the seats we had for 600-700 euros EACH, but something inside him moved him to give them to us, complete strangers, for free. His generosity had given us something our money could have never bought, for the thrill of the night was magnified by the circumstances and kindness that he had displayed.
It is my hope that we will be able to post a picture here to illustrate this McVenture, but we didn't have the camera with us. The blame for that lies with me. Upon leaving our apartment, Kate asked if we should bring it. "It's not like we are actually going to the game. Plus, I don't want to have to worry about carrying it around a crowded pub," I replied.
We did, however, ask a complete stranger after the game to take a picture of us with his camera and e-mail it to us. He seemed a sincere enough fellow, so we'll see if he actually follows through and delivers. After encountering the kindness of one stranger tonight, I'm pretty sure people are full of generous surprises.
Let me set the scene a bit. My favorite soccer team in the world is FC Barcelona. A very close second is Chelsea FC. Of course, these are two of the top 5 or 6 teams in the world, so rooting for them is pretty easy. Right now, the biggest club soccer competition in Europe, the Champions League, is in full swing. This morning, there were 16 teams left. After games from tonight and tomorrow, there will be only eight.
Because the Champions League knockout round pairings are drawn randomly, the teams ranked No. 1 and No. 2 in the world could theoretically be chosen to play each other in this, the Round of 16. Some people would say that is exactly what happened this year when it was announced that FC Barcelona would be matched up against Chelsea FC. I can still remember sitting in my home office in Portland back in December when the pairing was announced, thinking, "Wait a minute... Barcelona vs Chelsea in Barcelona on March 7? I'm gonna be living there by then!"
Daydreams of actually attending the game entered my mind almost immediately. Those daydreams were put to rest over the ensuing months when a bit of research on the Internet indicated the cheapest ticket for a decent seat would cost 500 euros. Now remember, that's euros, so we are talking like $600!
As the weeks passed by and Katie and I made the move over here, I always had March 7 marked off on the little calendar in the back of my brain. Even when the teams played each other in London for the first leg of the home-and-home series, Katie and I made a point to soak up some of the local soccer culture and head to a pub to watch it.
Over the past few days, I checked various CraigsList type web sites here, and still nothing good for less than 500 euros. Seats in the absolute nosebleeds were fetching 350 euros. Nevertheless, Kate and I decided this morning we would head up to the stadium before the game to see what the atmosphere was like. We had no hope whatsoever of actually getting cheap tickets, but we just wanted to see what the scene would be like when two of the world's best teams got together for the rather heated second game of their series. Barcelona had beaten Chelsea 2-1 in London, and the players and particularly the coach in the Chelsea camp were not happy about it. Lots of trash talk and the like in the papers over the past two weeks. Not to mention, it was Chelsea that eliminated Barcelona from last year's competition.
I got caught working a bit late today, so when I finally logged off at 8:15, I was uncertain we'd even have time to make our way via the subway to the stadium in time for the 8:45 kickoff. Even after we walked down La Rambla and were at the top of the steps to the metro station, we asked ourselves one last time if we should really waste our time going to the stadium, or if we should just hit our local pub.
"I've been waiting for this game since December. I know we are just gonna end up watching the game in a pub by the stadium, but I at least want to be nearby when all the fans spill out onto the streets after the game. Let's go," I said.
Sure enough, we got to the stadium just as the teams were being announced. There were still a few tickets being sold by scalpers, but let's just say it was a seller's market. The cheapest ticket I saw sold went for 400 euros; Kate and I had 100 euros between the both of us.
Nevertheless we hung outside the gate just people-watching. Kate has never really been in a ticket-scalping environment, so she thought the whole thing was just the most fascinating social sub-culture. Me, I was more entertained by the pathetic Chelsea fans getting turned away at the gate because they were too intoxicated to be allowed into the stadium. I kept thinking of a sort of sick and twisted MasterCard commercial.
Tickets to the Chelsea-Barcelona soccer game: 500 euros
Flight from London to Barcelona: 200 euros
Hotel room in Barcelona: 150 euros
Not being allowed into the game because you are too drunk to stand: PRICELESS
So after about 15 minutes of this scene, Katie and I were seriously considering leaving for the nearest pub we could find. Afterall, the game had started, and there was no way we were gonna get any tickets for the measly 100 euros we had.
I suppose it might be fair to mention here that it was Kate who said we stay a few more minutes. "I'm having fun watching all this chaos," she said with glee.
Well it's a good thing she insisted.
A minute or two later, a middle-age guy walked up to me with an inquisitive look on his face. I honestly couldn't understand for a moment or two whether or not he was trying to buy tickets, or sell me some. Then I heard the magic word... Carnet.
When I came to Barcelona in 2001, I scalped a carnet from a guy outside the stadium. Carnets are the season passes that the regulars keep all season long. Its a great thing if you are the buyer, because the seller wants it back once you are inside, so they walk through the gates with you, as opposed to some guy handing you a paper ticket, then disappearing before you get the bad news from the ticket-taker that you just bought a fake.
This man proceeded to explain that he was waiting for two friends with their carnets, but that they weren't there yet, so he was going in. I asked him how much he wanted for the carnets, but couldn't understand his answer. Kate's Spanish is better than mine, and even she was confused. I'll never forget what happened next.
The man said he didn't want anything for the tickets at all. "Son gratis." Then he motioned for us to follow him inside.
Once inside, we offered again to pay him something, but our new friend, Simon, wouldn't take one euro from us. He just wanted us to enjoy the game.
Unbelievable.
Then we got to the seats. They were awesome. Lower level, close enough to see the rubberbands in Ronaldinho's hair.
The game was exquisite. This is the second time I have seen Ronaldinho play in person, and he exceeds the hype. The goal he scored tonight has to be one of the best I've seen, not because of just his genius, but because of the brilliance of the entire Barcelona side.
The stadium, which is known as Camp Nou, went bonkers. Everyone around us was howling and hugging. Kate thinks I blew her eardrum when I celebrated by squeezing her tight and accidentally screaming in her ear.
For all my soccer friends out there, find a tape of the goal. I'd say half the team touched the ball as they strung together 10-12 passes bringing the ball up the right side. Henrik Larsson, Samuel Eto'o, and I believe Deco got in the mix and swung the ball across the field about 35 yards away from the Chelsea goal. Suddenly, Ronaldinho knifed in at top speed against the flow of the players and the ball. He took the ball on his foot, fought off a challenge from John Terry, then hammered a shot that Petr Cech barely got a piece of before it found the back of the net. Amazing stuff. I honestly want to find a video of it just to admire the build up and everything.
Chelsea managed to get a penalty in the dying moments to level the game 1-1, but Barcelona's 2-1 victory in London two weeks ago means they won the series 3-2 on aggregate goals.
So Barcelona moves on and I still sit here amazed by the turn of events that have been bestowed upon Kate and I tonight. When the game ended, Kate and I hugged Simon and thanked him profusely. He was humble right to the end, but I think somewhere inside he was happy to see us to ecstatic. He could have easily sold the seats we had for 600-700 euros EACH, but something inside him moved him to give them to us, complete strangers, for free. His generosity had given us something our money could have never bought, for the thrill of the night was magnified by the circumstances and kindness that he had displayed.
It is my hope that we will be able to post a picture here to illustrate this McVenture, but we didn't have the camera with us. The blame for that lies with me. Upon leaving our apartment, Kate asked if we should bring it. "It's not like we are actually going to the game. Plus, I don't want to have to worry about carrying it around a crowded pub," I replied.
We did, however, ask a complete stranger after the game to take a picture of us with his camera and e-mail it to us. He seemed a sincere enough fellow, so we'll see if he actually follows through and delivers. After encountering the kindness of one stranger tonight, I'm pretty sure people are full of generous surprises.
posted by Sean McMahon | 12:45 AM
2 Comments:
And so the DREAM continues.
MB
I sit hear literally weeping in my drunken tears as you two enjoy what life really has to offer...
Can I come? When? How?
Are you ready for more??
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