A couple of days ago we went to a bar to see the Champions League semifinal between Chelsea and Barcelona. It was absolutely crazy to watch it here in Barcelona, cheering amidst a chaos of fan and beer. Chelsea got an early goal and was in the lead up to the 93rd minute when Barcelona tied the game, thus paving the way for Barcelona to the Champions League final where they’re going to play Manchester United. After the game, we went to Las Ramblas andPlaça de Catalunya to celebrate with the other fans. The atmosphere there was incredible and the celebrations went on for hours. The police, however, were not too happy about the celebrations and decided to attack the happy fans at around 2 am.
The police here are a little different from that of Sweden. Here, the riot police take off their badges before they go into battle, hence they cannot be identified afterwards should they have violated any laws in the case of an unsuccessful action. People got beaten up badly, young and old, fans and Joes, and the more aggressively minded part of the crowd responded by throwing glas bottles at the police. We were in the middle of the chaos, sitting peacefully on a curb on Plaça de Catalunya, hoping they wouldn’t beat us since we didn’t do anything whereas others were throwing bottles some 50 metres away from us. They spared us during their first round, but by the time they came back for the second round of beating up they decided that we had lost our innocence. Two of my friends got beaten up by the police but they were just standing on the street buying beer from a random guy. In other words, they didn’t act in any way that might have been perceived as aggressive by the police. They were just the unlucky winners of the night. Someone else wasn’t as lucky, though. It was said on the news that a young adult later died from his injuries caused by the police brutality. Mossos d’Esquadra, that special department of the police force, aren’t to be bothered. They’re crazy.
I recorded this video while standing amidst the craziness on Las Ramblas:
May 12, 2009 at 10:21 am
The game was worth seeing, no doubt. At the bar it was full power when barcelona made scored in the 93:rd (?) minute. But it sucked to be beaten up by the cops, just for standing in the wrong place at the wrong time. But i had a good week with alex and björn! Take best care alex!
Namaste