By ROB HUGHESPublished: December 19, 2010
LONDON — If ever we doubt that sporting values still hold in the mercenary modern era, then the last weekend before Christmas was gold dust.
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Go to the Goal Blog. Before the Catalan derby match on Saturday between Espanyol and FC Barcelona at the new Cornellà-El Prat stadium, it was a player from the visiting team who received the applause of the 40,000 men, women and children in the audience.
And then, five minutes before the end, with Espanyol suffering a 5-1 home defeat, its supporters stood to applaud the same Barcelona player in that same spine-tingling manner.
This, trust me, is a once in a lifetime thing.
Andrés Iniesta is a once in a lifetime kind of guy. He gets a warm reception everywhere he goes, in every Spanish stadium no matter how hostile the atmosphere.
It is recognition for the little man who came in off his wing to volley the game-winning goal in the Soccer City stadium in Johannesburg last July, giving Spain the World Cup for the first time.
But the Cornellà is something different. It is the stadium of Espanyol, the other club of Barcelona. We should never say the second club, but of course it is smaller, less rich, and I dare say has a lesser team than the all-star line up of El Barça.
The philosophy is different, the means are different, but the rivalry is eternal and strong.
However, even the most partisan followers of Real Club Deportivo Español make an exception for “San” Andrés. And this goes deeper than gratitude for bringing home the Cup.
Cast your mind back to that South Africa night last summer. You might recall Iniesta’s first impulse after he scored that goal. He ran toward the crowd, tearing off his shirt and revealing an undershirt with the inscription: “Dani Jarque siempre con nosotros.”
It translates to “Dani Jarque, always with us.”
The words were in memory of a friend. Iniesta, and for that matter Cesc Fàbregas and others who shared that national triumph, had been raised with Jarque.
The personal friendship between Iniesta and Jarque deepened as they grew up together in the Spanish youth teams.
They represented the country at every level from 16 years to 21. Spain, better than any other nation, nurtures its young by identifying talent in adolescence and bringing it through as a group to manhood.
Barcelona is a mighty part of that, because seven players on its current team lined up in the World Cup final. Iniesta, though not born a Catalan, is a product of Barça’s La Masia academy.
Dani Jarque came up through the cross-town Espanyol apprenticeship.
Their bond was stronger than any division between the two clubs of the same city.
“I felt it on the field,” Iniesta said before he departed the stadium on Saturday. “This is the biggest thing. People sent me messages. People are more important than rivalries.”
Unless I am mistaken, Iniesta will very soon start cleaning up awards as the world’s outstanding player of 2010.
Also vying for those awards are two Barcelona teammates, Lionel Messi and Xavi Hernandez.
And while the match Saturday reiterated that there is no player on earth more special than Messi, and none more influential to Barcelona than Xavi, Iniesta ’s strike in the 116th minute of a World Cup final will probably seal him those awards.
Even his club coach, Pep Guardiola, felt there was something exceptional about Espanyol’s affection towards Iniesta.
Exceptional, too, was the Barça team spirit. If there is one place where all its secrets are known, it is inside Espanyol. The clubs are so close that Espanyol hires former youth players from its neighbor — including five on its current squad.
Yet once they cross the city, cross the line, they become the fiercest of rivals. Up to Saturday, Espanyol had played seven La Liga matches in its own stadium and won seven. It had conceded a mere two goals.
Its coach, the Argentine Mauricio Pochettino, made threats that his men would be just as aggressive as he was. Pochettino earned more red cards as a player than any other man in an Espanyol shirt.
He had captained Espanyol, just as Jarque, a big, strong central defender, was chosen to do a few years after Pochettino retired.
Alas, poor Dani Jarque. He collapsed and died of a heart attack while at preseason camp with Espanyol in Florence. He was 26, and he simply stopped breathing while talking on the telephone with his girlfriend, who was seven months pregnant.
That was why Jarque was uppermost in the mind of Iniesta last July in Johannesburg.
That was why Iniesta, though he intended to keep the undershirt, felt it belonged with Espanyol. He donated it to the club a month ago.
And that, surely, was why everyone applauded Iniesta on Saturday.
Unfortunately, the English referee at the World Cup final ruined the moment in Johannesburg by showing Iniesta a yellow card for removing his shirt.
It is in the FIFA rule book, so referee Howard Webb did as the rule dictates.
He showed Iniesta the same color card that he had flashed at Nigel De Jong after the Dutchman’s kung fu kick into the chest of Xabi Alonso during the final.
If FIFA has a conscience, it will revise that rule. It could do it in memory of Jarque, or in plain common decency.
But Barcelona is more than a club, more than a city, more than an act of sentimentality.
Guardiola’s team, three quarters of it grown at La Masia, proved again that it is among the finest ever to play soccer. Maybe the Real Madrid of the 1950s, possibly the AC Milan of the 1990s, were as great, but this Barça is still growing.
Guardiola is still learning to coach it. The display Saturday, with two goals from Pedro, two from David Villa, one from Xavi and more breathtaking creativity from Messi, was against a good, tough opponent.
Espanyol chased, kicked, and scored the first goal anyone has scored against Barcelona in seven matches. For Barcelona, which has won 10 consecutive matches, five goals a game is becoming a norm. An exceptional team, to be sure, with a saint on the wing. Iniesta doesn’t say a lot about his own talents, but Pablo Picasso, a former resident of this city, once wrote: “It is not what the artist does that counts, but what he is.”
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