Last night my friends and I went to a football game in Barcelona! The FC Barcelona or "Futbol Club Barcelona" is a huge symbol of Catalan culture and was something I was really looking forward to seeing before I even arrived here. The motto for the team is "Mé que un club", which in English means "more than a club", this is really representative of the importance of this team and sport in Barcelona. The FCB is a widely supported and cherish football club, which really showed when the stadium was absolutely booked even though it was thunder storming!
What I found interesting was how different sporting events are here than they are back home. The focus here is entirely on the game, which is probably how it should be. However, when you go to a football, baseball or basketball game in the United States, although people are invested in the game, there are other focuses as well. For example, drinking and food. At FC Barcelona games, there are no drinks or food served, because the entire focus is on the game. Another major difference I noticed was the noise level. While the play is going on there is no noise, it's actually rude to be loud because you are taking away focus from the game itself, while in America the stadium is generally a pretty noisy place.
The game we went to was against the Olympiacos FC, which is a Greek professional football club. We ended up winning 3 to 1 and it was a very exciting game to watch! Hopefully I can make it to another game before I leave.