Finding Messi
I stumbled upon a soccer match in Barcelona a dozen years ago, and it gave me an appreciation for a sport I'm still getting to know.
I say yes a lot.
One day, I’m standing at Dallas Stars hockey practice asking our PR guy Greg Ramirez what he’s doing for our 2014 Olympics break - and the next thing you know - I’m joining him for a week in Spain.
We had no agenda, not really. Greg speaks fluent Spanish and I knew that going in and that was quite helpful. I’d never been to Spain and neither had he. It was a cool week; we stayed in a stripped down hostel in Madrid and went out for Tapas with some of the residents, we took the train from there to Barcelona, and we walked and walked.
The morning of February 15, 2014, was bright and clear as we banged around one of the world’s most spectacular and oldest cities, navigating its L'Eixample grid pattern. Moving through the grand main arteries we viewed Antoni Gaudi’s La Sagrada Familia and other historic sites before somehow, quite by accident, arriving outside Camp Nou Stadium.
FC Barcelona plays soccer here. Lionel Messi plays here.
Oh look Greg, they have a match tonight…
Greg took the lead and emailed Barca’s PR staff and boom. Two press passes to see the game. I was interviewed at half time by their local radio broadcast. It was insane. Like - insane.
There are things you want to do in life. Bucket list things. Things you think about. Gee I’d like to go here. Boy wouldn’t it be cool to go there sometime?
And then there are the things you didn’t know were on your bucket list.
I saw Lionel Messi score two goals, and surpass Telmo Zarra as the player with the most goals for a single Spanish club. FC Barcelona won 6-0. There was lots of singing and cheering.
It was my first real, big-time, global soccer match, and the things I saw and experienced got me started down the path of giving the sport a look every now and then, even if I still don’t understand offsides.
I’ve since been to a few other matches and I’m still quite a neophyte, trying to understand the great sport and all its peculiarities while I watch more than I thought I might of this year’s World Cup, and the guy who got me started in it all those years ago.
