I started hating Barça because of my culé friends. One is a football club (Real Madrid), the other is like a 24/7 conspiracy podcast with unlimited episodes.
Every single conversation somehow turns into a comparison with Real Madrid. You could be talking about what to eat for dinner and suddenly it’s: “Well, actually La Liga is harder than the Champions League…” yeah sure, and water is dry if you argue hard enough.
They come up with the wildest takes:
“Madrid won’t win anything because Mbappé arrived.” Just… appeared out of nowhere like a side quest NPC.
“Madrid always gets help from referees.” Meanwhile there’s an actual historical case involving Barça and referees, but somehow that’s just… background noise.
If Madrid wins: luck or refs.
If Barça wins: football heritage, philosophy, DNA, probably written in ancient Greek somewhere.
And the Champions League thing is my favorite. If Barça doesn’t win it for 10–12 years, it’s because Madrid is “lucky” or “helped.” But when Barça had those very controversial ties back in the day (you know the ones 2006, 2009), suddenly everyone goes blind like it’s a solar eclipse.
At this point, watching a FC Barcelona match feels like I’m not even watching football anymore. I’m just hearing my culé friends in my head:
“Vinícius didn’t deserve the Ballon d’Or because of his attitude.”
What attitude? Scoring goals? Deciding matches?
Then they give it to Rodri while players like Vinícius Júnior, Dani Carvajal or even Thibaut Courtois had insane seasons. Makes total sense… if you don’t watch football.
And then the classic:
“Look at the best coaches in Europe, they come from Barça — Pep Guardiola, Luis Enrique…”
Yeah, and by that logic my neighbor who once cooked pasta is basically Gordon Ramsay.
Honestly, I’m starting to think some Barça fans don’t even watch matches. They just read tweets, build theories, and press “publish.” Like ChatGPT with a bias setting turned to maximum.
But to be fair, this rant is partly my fault. I shouldn’t even engage. I shouldn’t compare Madrid with Barça because… let’s be honest… there are levels. You don’t compare nostalgia with performance. One lives in memories, the other plays finals.
I could go on for another 30 minutes listing invented takes about Madrid that somehow apply more to Barça than anything else. The difference is I could criticize Madrid with real arguments. But I’m not giving that satisfaction to someone who debates football like it’s astrology.
Anyway… with this post I’ve probably given Barça more publicity than they’ve had in Europe lately. So congratulations, I guess.
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