Barcelona, ​​women are the pride of the blaugrana club

Xavi: «To go back to winning we have to take an example from them» Model for Italy that opens up to women’s professionalism in 2022

history

Seven years, put the timer on. That’s how long it took women’s Barcelona to count as much as men’s from the moment professionalism started in Spain. The turning point that Italy attempts, not exactly in photocopy, from the 2022-2023 season. The change was ratified by our federation yesterday, following approval in July 2020. And it always sounds like new news just because it took forever.

Watching what happens in Barcelona today does not mean getting distracted, rather anchoring oneself: this is the only possible path and leads to concrete results, if you don’t lose it.

Barcelona are European champions, fielding the Ballon d’Or woman, Alexia Putellas, has already won this championship (the seventh) and has booked the second consecutive final in Europe after overwhelming Wolfsburg with a 5-1 in the match of gone, five days ago. New record of spectators: 91,648, almost a hundred more than the 91,553 defined as “unreachable”, only in March, after the derby with Real Madrid, in the quarterfinals. It has been a few years since the Camp Nou has not been so full for men and Xavi, the men’s coach, interpreter of a football taught to the world, said: “To return to the highest levels we must take an example from them.” From women. But the incredible success of this team goes beyond the name, the national borders, the single season: it is a model and an example, not so much and not just for investments and methods, rather for the direction. It is proof that there is no other way and that it does not take centuries to reap the fruits of professionalism: the times are ripe, the public is ready, the cheering is total. Those 91 thousand people and passes obviously cannot be exclusive fans, they are supporters of Barcelona, ​​enchanted by a team that wins and no matter the gender of those who play.

Maybe it is difficult to imagine the equality of the ball and certainly the players do not get the same salaries as their counterparts and yet they already have the same follower size on Instagram and an identical structure. There is an under 10 team, an under 12, an under 14, the under 18 team, with many sixteen year olds and a B team, enrolled in a pro championship, which according to all the managers deploys talents in projection stronger than the current owners in Champions. Among them 9 players who came out of the youth academy, from the much celebrated La Masia which works equally for males and females. Up to the age of 14 they also often play mixed games. Putellas, born in 1994, only started getting serious when she was 20. Before she was impossible.

Barcelona was not born in 2015, they have existed since 1979, but have lived underground for decades and even when the women’s Liga was born in 2001, they struggled to get into it. It is recent history and it is the driving force thanks to clear decisions, of the system that has gone professional in general skepticism and has never prevaricated and of the company that has understood that it has to borrow the entire male project to get to the same level.

Now «the public, at the end of the matches, simply does not want to go home, they stay to party. And it is magnificent ». Everything that made Barcelona a brand without the delusional financial management of the counterpart. Starting from scratch has advantages.

It also means selling tickets for 15 euros, but they will go up but it is not certain that the lunar prices reached by men’s competitions are a point of arrival. They can avoid mistakes, bubbles, capital gains, for the moment Barcelona is enjoying the party: “People come to have fun, every time there is more charge”. Fiorella D’Angelo, 26, Catalan, after the match against Real confessed: “I couldn’t figure in a stadium like this, I could only see players there.” Those who come later will have another photograph.

See you again in seven years, if no one sets the clock back. –