The Valencia fans attended the last Valencia-Barcelona match at Mestalla en masse, no more, no less. In their minds, dozens of memorable afternoons and nights since that first duel in 1925. One hundred years of roses and thorns, with the culés being the only Spanish team that has won more times than they have lost at the oldest stadium in the League. The last one was disappointing, with the supporters more interested in showing their indignation against the ownership, the sporting management, the coach, and even the players, than in supporting their eleven representatives against one of the most powerful squads in the world. If with the fans’ encouragement victory was already a utopia, stripped of support the players made the team an easy prey for Lamine Yamal and company.
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The animation stand, behind Joan García’s goal in the first half, appeared empty before the match and during the first 19 minutes. That was the decision taken by a few — and very few others joined — to show their frustration in one of the most internationally projected matches of the season, the same one chosen by the erratic Kiat Lim, the club president and son of the owner, the Singaporean businessman Peter Lim, to sit in the box.
The dissenters gathered on Sweden Avenue, in front of the main facade, where the faces of some club legends hang, a centenary and glorious entity that these days displays a true war economy. There they unfurled their banners against the Lims and against Ron Gourlay, the football CEO who appeared on Thursday to assess the transfer market, an intervention that did not please part of the fans. Seconds before the starting whistle, while they were shouting to get their cries inside the stadium, the club counter-programmed with AC/DC’s Highway to Hell at full blast. Perhaps no one thought about the translation of the title, highway to hell, which is what the match was going to become.
There, on the street, the rebels were surprised by Yamal’s first goal. And the second, which was taken away by VAR. At 19 minutes they stormed through the two entrances that lead to their end and did so shouting chants against Peter Lim and Ron Gourlay that the whole stadium echoed. There was no moment to cheer for their own. Their task during this torrid and heavy afternoon was to attack those in charge. They had to consider the thrashing a done deal.
The rest of the fans caught that spirit and as soon as the team gathered during the hydration break with Carlos Corberán, dressed in black from head to toe, they took out their scarves and shouts of “out, out” rose. Then more goals came, handfuls of salt in the wound of a weary crowd. No one believes in this project that has started with one point out of 12 possible and that has offered them a solitary goal in 360 minutes.
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At halftime, the one who chooses the music slipped again. Someone must have told him that playing Qué vida tan dura by Arde Bogotá might not have been the best idea and he quickly cut the song and moved on to the next. Although not everything was slip-ups: the fans had the courtesy to pause every time some members of the world champion Spain entered or left.
The heat and the endless rondos of this red-haired Barça flattened the most belligerent in the stands. Spirits are so low that even the added minutes — seven in the first half and five in the second — were met with astonishment. The final whistle did not release a great outburst of frustration. With a 0-5, most preferred to leave with their mouths shut. Like Corberán, who stayed rooted at the edge of the bench, petrified, arms akimbo watching the last disaster of his Valencia. A candle extinguished on an altar.
The coach tried to weather the storm. “This match leaves us all shaken, but it does not leave us sunk,” he lamented. “We are going to go through this situation united and we will look at it with great honesty and sincerity. It is a difficult moment and somewhat disappointing and we accept all kinds of criticism from the fans because the season started with a very high level of hope and I have not achieved the level we want to give in front of our fans.” A fanbase that does not deserve such a gloomy farewell at Mestalla.
