Disappointment with Barcelona as I go to the great Camp Nou.

I had a great experience on Saturday night when I went to the Camp Nou in Barcelona to see the great Spanish side take on Racing Santander in their La Liga clash.

I say the experience was great because as a football fan, visiting the Camp Nou is one of the ten things you’ve got to do before you die. It’s a great ground, a great club and has so much history attached to it that it is one of ‘the’ places that any football fan needs to see.

Let down

If I am completely honest, the actual experience itself was in many ways a bit of a let down. Firstly, it absolutely poured with rain before kick off and our uncovered seating position left my friends and I totally drenched! Not the clubs fault I know, but not many great stadia these days allow the fans to get wet.

Secondly, the atmosphere created by the crowd was almost non-existent. It wasn’t helped by the fact that the stadium was at best two-thirds full, but the noise the crowd made was disappointing. Maybe that too is because the stands are all uncovered, but I think it was because the fans were all quiet. I’ve been to other great venues such as the Bernabau and Old Trafford and the noise generated by the crowds at those grounds totally eclipses anything I heard on Saturday night.

The team were pretty average

Thirdly, the team themselves were pretty average. The game was played with no pace at all and Racing, who put ten men behind the ball and, as Jose Mourinho would say, parked the bus in front of the goal, defended pretty comfortably for most of the match.

Barcelona eventually took the lead midway through the second half when Racing conceded a needless penalty and Lionel Messi made no mistake from the spot. They only managed to hold the lead for a few minutes though because Racing attacked for the first time in the game and scored the equaliser from a deflected free-kick.

After that Racing went back to ‘Plan A’ and Barcelona went back to huffing and puffing without any real penetration being apparent. Samuel Eto’o was ineffective and although Messi looked lively when he came on as a second half substitute, he really failed to create anything too dangerous.

Pointless passing

The one fact that struck me about the Barcelona side that I had never noticed when watching them on television was that almost everything they did went through their centre-half Carlos Puyol. I have always rated Puyol as a great player and indeed, he did little wrong in the game on Saturday evening.

However, if the role you have is to play a series of return passes with your fellow defenders deep inside your own half when you are only twenty yards apart and the opposition have retreated into their own half, then I think I could do a reasonable job in that position!

It was pointless football. It served no purpose whatsoever other than to keep the ball. That might occasionally be worthwhile in a tough away match or a game where you are scared of what the opposition can achieve when they have the ball, but in a game like the one on Saturday, it simply added up to mindless passing for the sake of passing that served no useful purpose.

Jeers and whistles

The crowd got more and more frustrated throughout the game and the only time they made a great deal of noise was as they started to jeer and whistle towards the end of the game, waving their white banners, leaflets and handkerchiefs in a show of dissatisfaction.

That is a pretty poor start from the side under new boss Pep Guardiola as they would have been keen to send an early message that they were going to overcome the large points deficit they suffered at the hands of their great rivals Real Madrid last time around. A defeat at a newly promoted club, favourites for relegation and a draw at home to team who had no intention of trying to win the game, is almost as bad as anyone could have feared.

Will failure be tolerated?

I don’t know enough about the backroom politics at Barcelona to guess as to what might happen and I do know that the main man, Joan Laporta, was the man who most wanted Guardiola in the role, but I wouldn’t expect too many more failures to be tolerated.

Whilst I loved the fact that I was at the great Camp Nou and was watching the great Barcelona, I couldn’t help being just a little disappointed with what I actually saw. Maybe things will get better during the season for Barcelona, but from what I saw, they have got a lot of improving to do.