Asian Tour: FC Barcelona and the Chinese Communist State

By: Isaiah | August 6th, 2007

While both Gabi Milito and Leo Messi finish up their vacations and begin training in Barcelona, the rest of the club is traveling in China and Japan on a small tour. Yesterday they defeated Beijing Guoan 0-3 (goals by Gio Dos Santos 8′, Iniesta 57′, and Ronaldinho 76′; match report here) with yet another weakened lineup. It has probably occurred to most Barcelona fans that these preseason tours are fairly useless, except that they confirm Maxi Lopez, Santi Ezquerro, and Thiago Motta are surplus to requirement. Perhaps something is learned about younger players like Oier, Crosas, Valiente, Olmo, and Dimas, but for the most part there is little expectation that any of those names will make appearances during the regular season, either in La Liga or the Copa del Rey.

So why bother paying attention to what’s happened in these ~~advertisement campaigns~~ tours? Rijkaard is probably expirementing in practise (training to some of you) more than he is on the field in terms of tactics, especially without Milito and Messi, the latter of whom creates so much more potential and radically changes the formations required to fit the players together at the front and in the middle that it seems foolish to attempt to gather any information from the formations so far used by Rijkaard. Milito, of course, is a one-for-one substitution with a central defender and merely adds more solidity to back rather than really creating greater opportunities*. And that’s not even mentioning Bojan’s absence on this tour because of yet another international youth tournament (this time it’s the U-17, but really, who’s counting anymore? U-x and he’s there playing for Spain). Also, where is Gudjohnsen? I have heard nothing of him in quite some time and no news appears with his name on it anywhere in Sport, Marca, or El Pais…

Tomorrow’s game against Yokohama F. Marinos can’t be much of a game, as it comes only 2 days after the Beijing game and 3 days before Friday’s match against Mission Hill Invitational 11 in Hong Kong. It seems a cramped “tour” but it is no doubt making the club plenty of money and the players are probably not too stressed, even by the radical time change. A few have suggested the tour is superfluous, that it is overly taxing, but for the most part the players have kept silent, at least in the media.

Another note is that Giovani Dos Santos is set to become a Spanish citizen (I assume dual of both Mexico and Spain) so that he frees up another “foreigner” roster spot. This would leave Milito, Toure, Eto’o, Marquez, and Sylvinho (I think I got them all) as the foreign players and would give Gio a better shot at making the first team since anyone could be added rather than it having to be an EU citizen.

Now, I’d like to discuss for a moment the picture that appears at the beginning of this post. I am on no level whatsoever an expert on China, Chinese politics, or Chinese culture, but there is no doubt something amazing about seeing the Barcelona motto (More than a club) in front of a row of soldiers representing an oppressive state and its hardline stance about liberty. I’ve been reading Jimmy Burns’ Barca: a people’s passion and it has struck me that now is the time to discuss the role of FC Barcelona in both the spreading of the game itself and its own brand of social awareness. After all, a club founded ostensibly on the principles of democracy and Catalan nationalism and very proud of its history as an anti-Franco bastian (whether or not this is warranted, it’s how it’s seen) probably shouldn’t consort too closely with dictatorial powers. [If there is anyone out there who reads this and knows a thing or two about China, please feel free to elaborate on this in the comments, especially where my often broadstroke statements about dictatorships could get me into trouble]. The picture suggests a level of understated rebellion, or at least some level of anti-establishment sentiments within the ranks of those who attended the game. Whether or not this is true, it’s impossible for me to know, but the idea of Mes que un club is certainly on display anywhere Barcelona goes.

If Barcelona aims to stand for social justice on any level, as the UNICEF logo suggests, does a tour in China go directly against that stance or does it support it. I tend to lean more towards the support side of the argument, based on teh idea of the previously mentioned understated rebellion. There is something powerful about the way culés stood up to the Primo de Rivera and Franco regimes as well as the Civil War era anarchist/Communist movements within the confines of the Les Corts stadium** and I think it would be a mistake to both forget those defiant acts as much as it would be a mistake to overly-glorify them. A team flying the flag of Catalunya is automatically seen as farther to the left than a team flying a flag decorated with the royal crown (see Espanyol) and the fact that Barcelona has always been on contentious footing with the ruling conservatives of Madrid, but it does not necessarily mean that the club and its presidents overlook the economic side of the equation.

On the contrary, Josep Lluís Núñez was a man bent on creating a sporting empire, which he did during his reign from 1978-2000. Whatever one thinks of Núñez, he certainly created a global name for Barcelona and set the foundations for what has turned into the the largest cash cow of them all. That economics comes first sometimes is no surprise, but it overshadows the current tour’s political potential. This may be a good thing, in the end, as the subtelties are probably not lost on the average Chinese, but a team like FCB could certainly force the issue and make it more prominent. I didn’t note anything political about their game in South Africa way back in June, other than perhaps the obligatory gift to Nelson Mandela, but that’s a safe political message, rather than a truly humanitarian one, such as could easily be expressed by any of the players or club officials during this trip to China. Perhaps they’ve held their tongues for the present and are opting to speak on the subject later (which would bring up the question of whether or not players should ever discuss politics as their voices tend to carry infinitely farther than their intellect would otherwise allow it; think Oleguer, who I tend to agree with, but who uses his status as a footballer to press his political viewpoints***).

I stand by the idea that Barcelona is Mes que un club, but it would be nice to see that in action a little more often, even at the expense of losing some sponsorships or even the ability to purchase an expensive attacking option you may not need.

*Of course, the ability to defend affects attacking opportunities, but let’s not get into that right now, as it’s fodder for several books, much less a single post.

**The Camp Nou wasn’t built until 1957; Camp de Les Corts served as Barcelona’s stadium from 1922 until the Camp Nou was inaugurated. And in case some of you are not particularly familiar with the political history of Spain, here are some links to the Wikipedia pages of Miguel Primo de Rivera, the Spanish Civil War, and the Franco Era. There are many other sources available which give a fuller account of these events and people, but the Wiki entries should serve for the basics.

***Kanye West’s line about George Bush springs to mind here. Again, I agree with him, at least in principle, but John Rocker said some idiotic things and it was amplified by the fact that he was an athelete. And I’m sure there are many other good examples of conservative atheletes saying things that were used as a rallying cry by others, but my brain cannot produce any such references at the moment.