Sunday’s match between Barcelona and Real Madrid wasn’t a classic, but it was still a joy to watch two of the best teams in the world and greatest rivals pitted against each other – in a bar only a couple of hundred yards from the Estadio Bernabeu.
Standing room only at the Irish Rover
And watching the way Messi, Iniesta, and Xabi kept the ball, even when surrounded by Madrid players, maintaining an incredible calmness at all times, was cool. A far cry from the blood and thunder of most Scottish games!
Philip, Charlie, Adam and I congragated outside the metro Bernabeu, appropriately enough, and headed for a giant Irish bar, se llama The Irish Rover, to watch the game. We thought if we turned up an hour early we would find a table. Wrong! The place was already busy, and five minutes later it was heaving. Eventually we managed to find a spot near the door where we could get a good sight of the giant screen without blocking anyone else’s vision.
Madrid were on top for the first half hour, and Ronaldo had a great chance to mark his comeback from injury in style with a potentially decisive goal. But it was the Barca substitute, Zlatan Ibrah…the Swedish guy…who made the difference with a cool close-range volley.
Zlatan Ibrahimovic after the final whistle blew
While the atmosphere was good, it was a far cry, I reckon, from how it would have gone down in the bars of Barcelona, where victory against their perenial title challengers seems to mean a bit more than for their Madrileño rivals. (Blame Franco and nationalism for that..)
