Videos of FC Barcelona at Camp Nou

I have added some videos from Barça's Saturday game to go with the below post. To make sense of them, it's probably a good idea to first read that post.

By no means am I a videographer as the clips will show you! However, I'm pretty impressed by what the Canon 5D MkII will do, and in the right hands, it's a very cool piece of equipment for videography.

Ideally, the camera would be better placed on a tripod to give it a more stable base and control when panning and zooming, but I was at a football match, seated high above the pitch and hand-holding my 5D MkII with the relatively heavy 70-200 IS f4 lens on it - at maximum zoom for most of the time.

The videos came out of the camera between 100 - 400mb in size, but I had to compress them to upload here - a video streaming server is not in my budget! As well, I was taking still images while videoing, so whenever there is a stutter in the visual and the sound of a camera shutter, that's me taking stills.

Enjoy for what they're worth - a lot of memories of a great night at Camp Nou!

The teams come on to the crowd singing El Cant del Barça



White handkerchiefs are waved furiously during la pañolada



Puyol accepts the La Liga trophy



The celebrations as the confetti cannons fire



The team takes the cups to the fans



Last night, they added another piece of silverware to the cabinet - the UEFA Champions League trophy!

We are the champions!!!

Barça completed the triple crown tonight with a 2-0 win over Manchester United in Rome.

Sung to the chorus of Queen's "We will, we will rock you":

Copa ~ Liga ~ Campions!

We went into the next door restaurant to watch it. They know us well in there as we go in to view all the major games on their big screens.

On TV, the best image of the team leaving the Rome Olympic stadium was of Piqué walking out with one of the goal nets draped around his shoulders and a match ball clutched tightly in his hands!

Plaça Catalunya is full of partying people in front of the entertainment stage and lots of fans are headed down Las Ramblas to celebrate by the Font de les Canaletes which is at the site of one of the first fountains in Barcelona and a traditional meeting place after FC Barcelona win major matches. It's a small fountain with a huge reputation and history.

The city is going wild - parties, fireworks, tooting horns - and a hell of a hangover tomorrow morning!

FC Barcelona's last home game for the season

Barça has already won La Liga (Spanish League)and La Copa del Rey (Spanish cup or King's Cup) for 2009. Tomorrow night, a win against Man U in the UEFA Champions' League Final to be played in Rome would give them a handsome triple crown.

Click on the images to enlarge them

Campions (Champions) merchandise is already very popular around here!

Originally scheduled for Sunday, Barça's last home game for the season against Osasuna was moved to Saturday so that FCB has an extra day to prepare for their UEFA match.

Camp Nou quickly filled with about 80,000 people who really weren't there to see the match, but to see their team presented with the La Liga trophy afterwards.

Messi Fan

The game wasn't a thrilling affair with FCB fielding a side made up of the second string, as well as young players from Barça Atlètic, because coach Pep Guardiola was resting his mainstream players. The only top players on the field were Abidal and Eto'o; the latter coming off in the second half to be replaced by Keita.

The customary team huddle before leaving the pitch after warm-up

To be honest, the crowd deserved a better last home game, but given that there is a chance for UEFA glory, Pep was forgiven. It was evident that the Barça team was not at full strength with some weak passing not finding team-mates, woeful freekicks and corners. They had the possession but couldn't clinch the required goals. Even Bojan was off-colour and Eto'o (who was mainly playing this match to try and increase his goal count to qualify for this year's top La Liga scorer award), just couldn't get it together.

In the 26th minute Osasuna scored from a corner, much to the delight of their fans as this keeps alive their hopes of staying in the premier division for next year.

The second half was full of action for all the wrong reasons. In the 81st minute, after a horrible Barça free kick attempt, Osasuna quickly got the ball down the pitch. Substitute Marc Muniesa, in his debutant appearance for FCB, made a sliding tackle for the ball and was a fraction late. Instead, he skittled the Osasuna player which should have earned him a yellow card and a warning, but referee Antonio Rubinos Pérez (from Madrid!) waved the red and a disgusted Muniesa stomped from the field.

Guardiola was quickly off the bench in protest and running down the sideline. To show his sarcastic appreciation for the ref, he applauded him and gave him the thumbs-up. For his trouble, he too was red-carded and sent down the stairs.

The crowd went into overdrive. Their beloved coach had been sent from the field, as well as a young player red-carded!

Extra security personnel quickly ran to guard the pitch circumference as the incensed crowd started to wave white handkerchiefs, boo, and whistle at the referee. The handkerchief waving is called pañolada and is a traditional Spanish way of showing disgust, anger or respect at football matches. In this instance, it was very much for the first two. (At bullfights, it only means appreciation, I believe.)

The pañolada in full flight

The pañolada continued for the rest of the match, pausing briefly so that the crowd could yell encouragement to a Barça fan (dressed in the player's strip), who, despite all the security, managed to run onto the pitch and stand in front of ref Pérez to ask him about his decision. He was quickly tackled by about 6 security men and taken away.

The fan gets hauled off the pitch

The three guys from London sitting beside me (who are Arsenal supporters 1st, FCB supporters 2nd and who hate Man U and Chelsea!), couldn't believe what they were seeing! They reckoned that by this time at a game in the UK, the crowd would be rioting and the game called off. Instead, here was the crowd showing their dissatisfaction by waving hankies in the air. This is what makes Camp Nou such a special place!

Match over, the ref was booed from the pitch and once he disappeared, the crowd settled down again. Here was what we had come to see.

Champions!

The La Liga cup was brought onto the pitch, and was followed by the Barça team who had changed into shirts which read "Campions 09" (Champions 09) on the backs.

The team assembles for the trophy presentation

Captain Carles Puyol was presented with the cup and he was hoisted into the air by his team-mates.

Puyol is lifted by the team as he holds the cup

A victory lap around the pitch showed off both La Liga and Copa del Rey cups, with players and crowd applauding wildly.

Goalie Pinto holds La Copa del Rey aloft while at the back, Piqué has the La Liga trophy

The team then posed for the press under 2 confetti cannons, and speeches were made by almost the entire first team and by Pep Guardiola.

Pep Guardiola is thrown into the air

Another victory lap around the field in the opposite direction followed.

Another victory lap

Curiously, not long after the second victory lap started, Thierry Henry left the team to return to the middle, where he sat by the coaching staff, stretching his legs and feet. Although he does currently have a knee injury, it was a move that made him look isolated and we hope that this isn't a sign that he is moving on. I love to watch him play.

Thierry Henry sits in solitude

Boom! Fireworks exploded into the sky behind us, so low that some of the sparks started to hit people seated in the upper rows of the stadium. The team settled down to watch and fireworks were also let off within the stadium from batteries on the pitch. It was a loud affair which lasted for about 10 minutes.

Time to say goodnight: once more, the team waved to the whole stadium and then disappeared down the tunnel.

Festivities over

The happy crowd filtered out of the gates to go home - or to head into the city for more partying.

Happy people leaving Camp Nou for the last time this season

Up next, it's Man U in Rome on Wednesday.

Visca Barça!

Barcelona - on a Sneaker

Adidas held an open competition to design a sneaker as part of their 2008 AZX series.

The winner is this, called the AZX ZX700Y:


The press release doesn't mention the winning designer's name nor where he/she is from, and says that the sneaker "features silhouettes of landmark architecture from across the globe".

I'm guessing that the designer is from Barcelona, given the high proportion of the city's landmarks on that shoe.

I can spot:
Gaudi's Sagrada Familia
Columbus Column
Torre Agbar
Olympic Park Communications Tower
Hotel Arts and Mapfre Towers
MNAC (National Art Museum of Catalonia)
Two towers at the entrance to the site of 1929 Barcelona World Fair

The limited edition shoes can be bought online at Hanon for €79.95.

Damn - I just bought a €20.00 pair of Adidas at Alcampo. I reckon that if I change the blue laces for an orange pair, and buy some black paint to draw the silhouette and paint the soles, I too can have a shoe that looks like this.

Contrails over Barcelona

When travelling on planes, I'm glued to the window searching for other aircraft which is fun to do in high traffic areas such as continental Europe or America.

If certain weather conditions are present, particularly at higher altitudes with just the right mix of colder temperatures and humidity, aircraft will leave contrails. The hot engine exhaust turns water vapour (present in the atmosphere) into ice crystals which show as the white trail behind the planes. The trails may disappear quite quickly; at other times they will hang around and often disperse into thin cirrus sheets across the sky - depending on the weather conditions.

While performing an internet search on what forms contrails, I came across more websites set up by people and organisations which claim that contrails are actually "chemtrails", than I did find sites explaining what contrails actually are. These chemtrail sites propose that the planes are deliberately releasing other chemicals into the skies as part of weather control experiments or other sinister plots. Reading the Wikipedia entry will give you some idea of some of the theories that are out there.

One website stands out as a voice of reason in the soup of conspiracy - Contrail Science. Calling himself Uncinus, the website owner endeavours to scientifically explain the theories behind contrails, with some interesting historical analogies and amazing images. I especially like those of the bomber and fighter squadrons in WWII. Reading some of the comments left by the non-believers can be quite entertaining, and at the same time - if you're not a conspiracy theorist on this subject - it's scary to think that there are people out there who have partaken of the Chemtrail Koolaid and believe. Each to his own - I have some particular theories about certain topics that also make people raise their eyebrows and edge for the nearest door, whilst phoning the nearest mental health institution to summon the men bearing a straitjacket in my size.

It's also interesting to read reports about recent inquiries as to what the contrails are, from people who have seemingly never noticed them before. Given the increased air traffic over the years, these people have either lived in remote areas far away from aircraft flight paths; have never looked up into the sky for any length of time, or have not travelled. A recent thread in a Dubai Forum that I follow also had a member asking what the white trails were in the sky recently over the UAE. (They're not uncommon - I used to see them over Dubai when we lived there.)

I liken this to the theory around one of Captain James Cook's encounters with the Australian aborigine. As he sailed Endeavour up the Oz east coast, and close off a beach as they performed fathoming and mapping exercises, a group of aborigines was spotted walking along the sand. Cook's crew whistled and called out to them, but the aborigines never once acknowledged the boat or the noises - it was if they couldn't see it or hear anything.

This would certainly have been their first encounter with a vessel of this size and type, as well as with white men, so how could they not see it and react in some way? It would be like modern day man being approached by a spaceship or foreign beings from another planet, or actually seeing a real USS Enterprise cruise by.

Cook's theory was, that because the boat and his crew were so alien, the aborigines' minds/brains could not get around the concept of something like this appearing in their world, and they could not interpret what was unfamiliar to them. A old time version of cannot compute.

Cook's thoughts would blow the ending of Mel Gibson's Apocalypto out of the water. It also makes me wonder if there are things in our world that we also don't see because our brains can't decipher what they are, as they don't relate to what we perceive or recognise as being "normal". In other words, some of the people on this planet who see things, that others don't, (ghosts or UFOs for example), might actually be seeing them while others cannot.

I digress - back to contrails.

Barcelona seems to be at the crossroads of a lot of high altitude aircraft movement. At any time of the day, I can look up to see jets passing at over 30,000', contrails forming behind them given the right conditions. They generally pass in an north-south direction between continental Europe and Africa, or east-west between Asia/Middle East and America, or perhaps the UK.

Last Wednesday morning, I stepped out onto our balcony to find contrails strewn across the sky. My tiny mind was quite excited by the scene, and I had to call J out as well. After oohing and aahing for 3 seconds, she headed back indoors, shaking her head; fingertips itching to reach for her phone to call for that straitjacket in my size.

Grabbing my camera, I watched 2 planes converge at roughly the same altitude; one flying north-south and the other west-east, with the west-east aircraft doing a big swerve in order for them to pass at the required safe distance.


Another 2 planes crossed over shortly after this and added to the pattern.



There was a light westerly wind blowing, but it wasn't strong enough to dissolve the contrails; instead they started to spread out to become a thin cirrus layer.


I photographed over a 10 minute period before being summonsed indoors for breakfast. The past few days have seen repeats of the contrail spreads.


As for contrails being chemtrails: that's a wee bit beyond my credible comprehension, and as a frequent traveller around this planet and a somewhat logical thinker, I believe that if planes didn't show some sort of visible exhaust, then they would be the only combustible engined vessels to do so.

Are they weather experiments? Not by design. When spread over the sky as light cirrus, contrails do have a slight effect on lowering ambient temperature and reducing the sun's direct warming and lighting effect. As a photographer, that haze produces lighting similar to one giant, glorious, diffused softbox in a studio which eliminates high contrast and dark shadow areas - perfect for photographing people in most situations. As a sunlover who loves the warmth, I hate it.

That's my theory and I'm sticking to it.

Above all, I'm still clinging to the girlish wonder that comes from appreciating beauty in science and technology as well as in nature.

La Feria de Abril de Cataluña

In the last week of April, Barcelona held its version of La Feria de Abril. Although not as big and glitzy as the key event in Seville, there is no charge to enter Barcelona's fair.

Divided into 2 areas, one is dedicated to fairground attractions such as rides and shooting galleries.


The other is where all the action really is, and the main purpose of the fair. Large marquees are set up - called casetas - in which traditional Andalucian flamenco dancing takes place. These tents are occupied by dance clubs as well as private companies and political organisations.


As we wandered past the rows of tents, it became evident that some were having a better party time. While most of the dancing was desultory and seemingly performed by people who were not having fun, there were other groups who were whooping it up and getting into the spirit of the event.

We stopped to watch one group from Isla Cristina as they performed the Sevillanas, the traditional dance of Andalucia. Out of all the tents, they appeared to be having the best time. The moves are very orchestrated and have a lot of overhead flourishes and hand movements. It was interesting to watch, but the poor lighting made it difficult to get any good quality images.


The food areas were incredible. Wine, jamón and grilled meats were on offer in this tent.


Big paellas were part of the menu in other areas. They looked so delicious that we couldn't walk past, and stopped to have a couple of plates.


It tasted as good as it looked!


Fortunately for us, the fairground at Diagonal Mar was within walking distance of our apartment, so we got a chance to walk off the food as we waddled home.