BarcelonaSunny afternoon. T-shirt, scarf around his neck and towards the Camp Nou. Important party day at the temple. Also opening day: Dani Alves and Traoré played their first minutes of the season at the stadium on their return to Barça. They also debuted face to face with Barça fans at home to Ferran Torres and Aubameyang, the latter as a substitute. An afternoon that could also be a lesson for Dembélé, for whom Xavi had apologized and who, in the end, took a few whistles to the field despite not playing. When the Frenchman’s name was heard on the list of substitutes, and also when he went out to warm up before the match, he could already notice the rejection of a part of the fans. In fact, the most radical groups had dedicated some not very affectionate songs to Dembélé around the stadium before the match. However, Jesús Gil Manzano did not manage to connect with it, as his team mates had hoped, and the ball went out. Xavi would explain after the game that he had thought about making the Frenchman play in the second half, but that the expulsion of Alves conditioned his plans.
The return of the fans after almost a month and a half without football in the stadium was a rocking of emotions. The Camp Nou felt like a party again at many moments. Without Dembélé at eleven, the public was ready to celebrate the arrival of new faces on the team. On the first ball he touched, Adama won a standing ovation. And it was that the end signed a great first half, associating with Alves and Pedri and making Mario Hermoso go crazy, who lived a nightmare until Simeone was forced to bring down Carrasco to help him in tasks defensive.
But before Adama’s show there was the moment Jordi Alba. The Hospitalet winger, who has never had many inconveniences when sending messages to the fans, appeared in the photo of the first mattress goal and then celebrated his museum goal scolding the public . The episode would soon be covered, as we said, because Adama, who probably rubbed a higher level than expected, served an assist to Gavi that made the stadium explode with joy. The foundations of the old Camp Nou were beginning to show the impetus of a fan who had been for a long time, too long, who did not enjoy his team in a big game. If anyone was still afraid to let go, Araujo signed the third before the break. This provoked a scene that already seemed forgotten in the stadium: the audience saying goodbye to the team in the direction of the locker room tunnel at the equator of the match. The Camp Nou was finally a party again.
Alves, from master of ceremonies to expelled
But there was still a lot to do in the second half. Because football has the ability to distort the perception of time, speeding up or slowing down events in a matter of minutes. Sometimes, even in just a handful of seconds. If the atmosphere at the stadium was festive, his master of ceremonies could not miss it: Dani Alves would sign the fourth and see how, at the age of 38, the Camp Nou would return to its feet. The story could have ended here, but the screenwriters of the afternoon still had a couple more chapters remembering that heroes can also get their heads dirty.
This was the case on the Brazilian side. With Luis Suárez putting the fans a little scared with the 4-2 (a goal he did not celebrate in his first face-off with the Camp Nou crowd as a mattress), came the expulsion of the veteran player. Alves stepped on Carrasco’s twin in an action that the VAR did not forgive and Gil Manzano kicked him out. A decision that would change until the end of the match the mood of the fans, who had experienced the last moment of euphoria receiving Aubamenyang with a standing ovation. With the game warming up, Ferran called for a foul in an action in which the referee did not whistle anything close to the Atlético area and the fans dedicated a loud shout to him. They were moments of tension. Even Òscar Hernández, Xavi’s brother and second coach, was expelled for protesting. In the last minutes the game hardened, but it didn’t matter anymore because, a long time later, the Camp Nou was once again a party.
