I can remember the first time I went to the Nou Camp to see FC Barcelona it was early 2004 and Ronaldinho was playing in those days – actually it was the first season that Joan Laporta was the president of Bara. When I walked into the stadium I was struck by its sheer scale and walking in at floor level was surprised to look down at the pitch.
It turns out that the pitch is 2 metres or so below ground level and done to increase the stadium’s capacity at some specific point in its history. The Nou Camp was opened in 1957 and though it's been extended and expanded since that time, at one point it might hold more than 100,000 spectators. Nevertheless there days out because the stadium is all-seater it can only hold 98,000 – that is still a lot of folk.
With such a large crowd you might think it takes a very long time to drain the stadium after a match. But it is extremely surprising that it empties so fast and actually the club claims to can empty in just 5 minutes. The streets around the stadium get pretty packed though and transport it troublesome. The roads get blocked by people, buses full and the metro is log jammed with folk – luckily I was inside walking distance.
When I first started going to observe Barça play it was after a period of comparatively poor performance and it is reasonable to say that Laporta inherited a club that had lost any belief in its ability to win prizes.
But with Frank Rijkaard as coach and stars like Ronaldinho, the club started to win. Although they did not win the Spanish League that year they did the following. As significantly they revived their self-esteem and crowds started to revisit watch them play. Nowadays it’s much more difficult to get good seats at all but matches against the lowliest of groups as season tick holders and club members have the pick of what’s available.
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