BARCELONA, Spain — Looking uphill from an urban street, we catch sight of the sun’s reflection off a towering silver wall. It is the perfect welcome to Camp Nou, home to FC Barcelona and its trove of shiny trophies spanning nearly 120 years.
Filled with goodies for futbol fans — never “soccer” here — the Camp Nou Experience is what you might find if you combined a Heinz Field Tour with the Heinz History Center’s Western Pennsylvania Sports Museum, sprinkled with a little Disney theme-park magic and merchandise push.
Tickets: 25 euros (about $29) explore at your leisure; 35 euros (about $41) add a virtual reality experience to audio-guide tour or front-of-line entry; 120 euros (about $140) for Players Experience Tour allows visitors to see areas reserved for players; exclusives include locker room entry, a walk along the pitch, appetizer and gift. www.fcbarcelona.com/tour/buy-tickets
Tips: Advance tickets have timed entry, but visitors can purchase same-day tickets. The audio guide was helpful when items were not accompanied by English text. You may explore at your leisure within the start and finish hours; we spent about three hours once we entered “The Experience.” Water bottles are allowed and a good thing to have on a hot, sunny day.
With 99,000 seats, Camp Nou is the largest capacity stadium in Europe and an active monument to Barcelona’s beloved soccer club.
My son, Josh Axelrod, and I are staying an easy walking distance to the stadium and follow our GPS to a spot around the corner from the entrance. There are huge signs with arrows pointing to the beginning of the Camp Nou Experience: Tour & Museum.
We arrive with plenty of time before our mid-morning timed entry, an audio-guide tour purchased a month in advance. So we take advantage of an outdoor tapas spot just inside the gate, and then — the “Experience.”
Camp Nou, meaning “new field” and pronounced “new,” was inaugurated in 1957, but the museum today features up-to-the-minute tech.
We are sent on our way with English-speaking audio guides — headphones attached to a cell phone, programmed for users to hit the numbers indicated during the tour and get the scoop.
Leading up to the museum is a corridor like an airplane boarding bridge, with a central aisle for green-screen photo ops (available later for purchase). We skip that one, although most people don’t.
The festive air of the entry changes to reverential as we walk into the darkened museum, where backlights and interactive screens provide the light. The closest I can recall to the shelves lined with trophies is at the UCLA Hall of Fame.
The museum that opened in 1984 is state of the art — a combination of artifacts and screen interactives that celebrate not just FC Barca’s storied history and tons of hard-earned hardware but also all of Barcelona sports triumphs, including ice hockey. (There is a Spanish League, folks. Who knew?)
The trophies come in all shapes and sizes, to match Barcelona’s long list of triumphs dating back to its founding in 1899. Besides being a club member of La Liga, the club that fans call Barca has won 20 European and world titles, plus 25 La Liga championships and more than 70 domestic titles overall.
We happen to be here in late June, when Spain is still in World Cup contention, along with the Barca star of stars, Lionel Messi of Argentina, and others including Luis Suarez of Uruguay.
The familiar red and blue vertical stripes of a Barca jersey with the name “Messi” emblazoned on the back are among the modern artifacts under glass at the museum.
It commemorates one of Messi’s myriad contributions to FC Barcelona, the club’s 5,000th goal. The accompanying card is in Spanish, but here is how the feat on Feb. 1, 2009, is described by FIFA.com:
“Barcelona are a goal down and a man down in a league match away to Racing Santander, with Messi on the bench. Stripping off his tracksuit, the Argentinian superhero comes to his side’s rescue, entering the fray to score a brace and secure three precious points. One of those goals was the club’s 5,000th in La Liga. ... ‘He had two chances that weren’t even half chances and he took them both,’ said Racing coach Juan Ramon Muniz with a mix of regret and admiration.”
The jersey is at the far end of a display case that includes imagery dating back to the turn of the 20th century and pictures that show the club’s history intertwined with that of the region’s political upheaval. Barcelona is the capital of Catalonia, a region at the northeast tip of Spain that is in a battle for autonomy. On the streets of Barcelona, one can’t go far without seeing yellow ribbons highlighting the struggle for independence.
The sport itself is king here, of course, and one can interact with dynamic touch screens that allow users to choose videos of key moments for FC Barca and its stars.
We enjoyed a lot of stylistic event posters in Paris, before arriving in Barcelona, where among my favorite displays are designs by some of Spain’s best-known artists, including the 25th anniversary poster by Jose Segrelles and the 75th anniversary poster by Joan Miro.
If hallowed halls of history aren’t all that appealing, head straight to the rest of the Experience, which includes the training room with massage tables and Jacuzzi, the interview room for post-match grilling and entry to the sidelines.
Visitors enter the field as the players do, passing the small chapel on the right before heading up steps and into the light on a sunny day in June.
From the centrally located spot, we face a far side of stands with color-coded seats that spell out: “WHAT DOES MES QUE UN CLUB MEAN?”
The answer is FC Barca’s motto: “More than a club.”
One of the upper-tier end zones is a little more like home — instead of words, there’s a Nike swoosh.
The tour includes the uppermost tier and press box, which frankly is a little shabby, with stuffing coming out of some upholstery and obstructed views but plenty of video screens.
The way out includes a long-wall video trailer about the club, models of the stadium and inevitably ends in a team merchandise megastore.
Along the way, there is another photo op for purchase — snapped while lifting a large trophy. We participate in that one and later buy it as an email attachment for 10 euros (about $12) — a copy would have been 30 euros (about $35).
We have plenty of photos of our own at that point, and as much as we enjoy ourselves, we leave feeling that there is one important experience we missed out on — seeing FC Barcelona play live at Camp Nou.
Sharon Eberson: seberson@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1960. Twitter: @SEberson_pg.
First Published: July 19, 2018, 1:00 p.m.
