So Spain’s football authorities-with the agreement of the respective clubs-have switched the date of the next ‘Classico’ between FC Barcelona and Real Madrid at the Camp Nou at this end of this month from the weekend to the Monday.
To have held it on the Saturday or the Sunday would have coincided with the staging of the highly emotive Catalan regional elections, thus guaranteeing the event being turned into a potential political battleground.
Politics and history is of course partly responsible for making this one of the high points of the football season- but it’s also about two great football teams-arguably the world’s best- playing each other. The decision fits in with new Barca president Sandro Rosell’s wish to have Barcia judged for its quality first and foremost and not as an adjunct to a political party as his radicalised predecessor Joan Laporta tried to do.
But officials hoping to ‘defuse’ this year’s encounter may be engaging in wishful thinking. In the aftermath of the Catalan elections, and with Mourinho present, it’s going to be combustible anyway. I just hope we can see some decent football. It should be a cracker and I have cleared my diary to be there if I can.
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