My last quiniela involved one of the biggest rivalries in world sport, Boca Juniors versus River Plate. I took a couple of weeks off but now I am returning during the weekend of perhaps the only other rivalry that rivals Boca v. River – Real Madrid against Barcelona. El Clásico.
This meeting is steeped in history and politics. The two sides are the biggest in Spain and two of the biggest in the world. Barcelona is arguably the best in the world right now – the won every competition they participated in in 2009 and are in splendid form, coming off a 4-1 thrashing of Arsenal in the UEFA Champions League thanks to a world class 4-goal performance from wunderkid Leo Messi. Real Madrid, on the other hand, are the world’s richest sports team but have only one trophy to play for this year. They have been knocked out of the Copa del Rey and Champions League despite spending oodles of money last summer to acquire the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo, Kaká, Xabi Alonso, and others. Los merengues are leading Barcelona in La Liga by one point so the league championship is riding on this match. Needless to say, Real Madrid has it all to play for this Saturday while Barcelona still has other trophies to play for.
This rivalry is best summed up in a story dating back to the early years of the Franco regime. Real Madrid has traditionally been associated with the idea of a unified, central Spanish state while Barcelona is the epitome of Catalan nationalism and, in boarder terms, Spanish regional autonomy. It is said the Franco himself was very much a fan of Real Madrid. The Copa del Rey was renamed the Copa del Generalisimo after the Spanish Civil War in honor of the military dictator Francisco Franco. In 1943, Real Madrid and Barcelona met in the semi-finals of the newly renamed cup tournament. Barça won the first leg at home 3-0 and were in the driver’s seat. However, an interesting thing happened before the return match in Madrid. The head of state security supposedly entered the Barcelona dressing room before the match and told the Catalans that the only reason they were even being allowed to play this match was because Franco was generous enough to allow them to remain in the country. Remember that this is only a few years after the end of the civil war. Barcelona lost the match 11-1, a record loss that still stands to this day.
Morbo. Look it up in a Spanish dictionary. It doesn’t translate well but this match has tons of morbo. If that story and word doesn’t put this match in to perspective, I don’t know what does. On to the picks . . .
Jornada 27 – 6/11
Season – 80/147 (54%)
*It should be noted that I do not pick results for mid-week La Liga or Argentine matches
4 out of 10 – what a great introduction to my first Quiniela post. At least I bested ESPN’s professional! To be honest, last week was a crazy one in La Liga. Sevilla and Valencia both dropped points at home and other teams put in quiniela-busting performances. Only one person in Spain correctly guessed the traditional quiniela of 10 La Liga matches and the pre-selected 5 Segunda matches. I got the big one right thanks to the big Swede above – Barcelona registered a 1-0 win over Real Madrid in the much anticipated Clásico.
Barcelona has another tough test this week, traveling to Galicia to face Deportivo La Coruña. Other key matches include a Real Madrid legend returning to the Bernabéu and Athletic Bilbao hosting Valencia.
If your a Facebook friend of mine you might have noticed that I regularly play two games on the social networking site, Premier League Picks and La Liga Picks. Even though I spent almost two months in Spain earlier this year I was completely unaware of the quiniela, a Spanish national betting competition, that is very similar to Facebook’s La Liga Picks. Participants guess the winners of the ten Primera División fútbol matches and five other matches from the Segunda División (Facebook’s version only offers the first division).
ESPNSoccernet’s Eduardo Alvarez introduced me to the Spanish tradition two weeks ago even though I had been playing the game in another form for months. The idea is to correctly guess the outcome of the weekend’s selection of games, choosing ’1′ for a home win, ’2′ for an away win, and ‘X’ for a draw. Cash prizes in Spain are possible for strong performances and two people even won over €600,000 in 2006! With my blog’s new focus on Spain and Latin America, I am going to publish my quiniela picks every week but my picks will only cover the Primera División.
Blowing the dust off the cover . . . here are some travel-related items from around the Internet that caught my attention.
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Brad Scriber, an editorial researcher for National Geographic magazine, showed off his iPod playlist from a recent trip to Barcelona. Scriber says that he likes his travel soundtracks to include “a few puns, allusions, or inside jokes.” Well, the joke is on Brad. The Decemberists, Ted Leo and the Pharmacists, and Paul McCartney? Toad and the Wet Sprocket? Not exactly the first music that comes to mind regarding the Catalan capital.
It seems all Scriber did, and he admits as much, is type words related words into iTunes, such as Barcelona and Spain. Its a lazy way to make a mix tape, which Brad claims to be intimately familiar with as a child of the ’80s. The only natives on his list are a Swedish group who’ve adopted the city as its home. It is akin to listening to Jimmy Buffett’s “Jamaica Mistaica” instead of Bob Marley and The Wailer’s “Trenchtown Rock” while hiking in the Blue Mountains.
Rather than purchasing pedestrian indie rock from iTunes or Rhapsody, Scriber would’ve been better suited to research actual Catalan music to enrich his trip to Barcelona. Furthermore, rock catalá could have satisfied his musical tastes, turned him on to another genre, and supported local artists. There’s an ingenious concept – supporting the local economy where you are traveling.
Scriber even rubbed salt in the wound, promoting an artist on the Nat Geo Music label who is a native of Madrid, Barcelona’s eternal rival. That shouldn’t go over too well with Barça and the blaugranes.
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Brave New Traveler has an article that will please every traveler’s mother, profiling cocaine bars in Bolivia. I was shocked to read the author state “drug bars could be the thing Bolivia needs to jump-start tourism.”
Yes, just what Bolivia needs right now. It’s almost a reverse of Bush’s “better to fight them over there than here at home.” American and European demand for cocaine has a brutal legacy in South America. The last thing the continent needs are inconsiderate backpackers flooding the country to get high. There is so much more Bolivia has to offer tourists it is a shame Brave New Traveler went so far as to suggest drug tourism could be beneficial to the nation’s economy. The sad part is there seemed to be no remorse for implicitly promoting such tourism. The author chastises “tactless tourists” who might blow the cover on the Route 36 drug bars rather than give warnings on the negative effects of drug use, tourism, and trafficking.
If you want to know how a local would react to gringos arriving in their town looking for the “blow bar,” read the comment from a Colombian in the article’s comments section.
