Wednesday August 10th
While touring the Camp Nou was an awesome experience, we couldn't help but imagine how much better it would be with a match-day atmosphere. Luckily we were fortunate enough to be able to go to this year's Joan Gamper Trophy game. The Joan Gamper serves as FC Barcelona's last preseason game as well as a "presentation" of the team to the fans. Since kick off wasn't until 8:30, we took the morning to enjoy our hotel and Santa Susanna until lunch time. The middle of our day consisted of three hours of free time to explore the city of Barcelona. While a couple of groups went to pursue different attractions, I can say my favorite part was the best farmers market I've ever seen. While I wasn't quite brave enough to try the various animal brains or hearts they had, everything we tried was amazing - a common theme of the week.
In terms of the match itself, I'm not quite sure where to start. As a huge Barca fan myself, the whole experience was surreal. After spending years streaming their games every week on questionable Spanish websites with commentary from Middle Eastern broadcasters, I couldn't believe I was watching my idols play live. At the surface, Barca won 3-2 against Sampdoria, a fairly good team from Italy's first division. The game featured an amazing bicycle assist from Messi, as well as two signature goals from him only a couple minutes later. The team was on fire and gave a perfect example of so many things that we try to do as a team. The number of times we exclaimed an "Oh my gosh" after a brilliant skill, pass, or tackle was too high to count, even during the warm-ups. Our seats were great and offered an awesome view of all five goals. All-in-all, the game lived up to all the expectations we had going in, and exceeded most of them. The night ended with a relaxing dinner and rest before our last match the next day.
Thursday August 11
As it was the last full day, our morning and afternoon were free to do any last minute exploring, enjoy the beach, or relax before the game. Our final match was against another solid team in Spain for Marshals. They were an older team with some skilled players, but our team put in a good performance, and I feel we were a bit unfortunate to only come out with a 0-0 tie. We took some of the lessons we learned from the Barca game and did well at possessing the ball, being creative in the attack, and staying sound defensively. All we lacked was the finishing touch, although a bicycle clearance off the line didn't help us either. After the game, we went out for one last dinner out on the town and enjoyed each other's company.
Friday August 12th
After a quick breakfast we were off to the airport to head back home. Looking back, the trip was nothing short of amazing. Many of us agree that there was the perfect mixture of soccer, tourism, and free time. A lot of that was thanks to our trip manager, Borja Malo, who was overall an awesome guy and did a great job of keeping us entertained. I wouldn't change a thing about the trip, and I'm so thankful to everyone who contributed to make this whole experience possible. Each day brought a new experience that will live in my memory forever. As a team we definitely bonded even more and I feel that we got a major head start to our season that other teams definitely won't have. We definitely missed having the guys around who weren't able to make the trip, and are excited to join them as well as the incoming freshmen on the 19th for preseason.
