Hola,
What an adventure! Yesterday we got back to Pare Manyanet and I was in for a big surprise. I thought that we were going to the Osasuna vs. Barcelona on Sunday. Instead I returned to the school and was surprised to find out we were going to the Champions' League game. I thought I had misheard or I had translated wrong, but after five minutes of discussion I found out that the surprise had been planned for over a month! I am an avid soccer fan and this was a dream come true! We took the bus to the game and it was crazy to see the bus fill up with passengers wearing Barça shirts, jerseys, scarfs, etc. Then when we got to the Camp Nou I couldn't believe my eyes. There were tens of thousands of people shuffling around the outskirts of the Camp Nou trying to enter it. The atmosphere before the game was incredible and there was never a moment without noise. Then we found our seats and waited for the game to start...
Then the game started. The noise level rises along with my adrenaline. You can feel the passion in the air, willing the Barcelona players to score goals. Attack and counterattack, the game moves at incredible speed that only a few teams are capable of playing. Then a Barça attack, a Man-City player bobbles the ball and Messi pounces. Messi picks up the ball and takes a few steps before gracefully chipping the ball over Joe Hart. An EXPLOSION of noise follows the goal along with a lot of flag waving by the 86,000 people in the crowd. There is a reason he is considered one of the best in history and after seeing Messi play soccer in person I completely agree. Then, a dreadful moment... a corner kick for Man-City. The ball is crossed in and a Man-City player heads the ball across from the far side of the goal to a waiting Vincent Kompany, who proceeds to make an acrobatic kick to score a questionably offside goal. The goal stands but the Barça players cannot believe what they have seen and protest the referees for a long time about Kompany being offside. The mood is darker after the Man-City goal, but soon the temporary fog will be lifted. In the fading minutes of the second half, with a tie looming on the horizon, there is one last Barça attack. Andres Iniesta brings the ball down the line and beats his defender. Crashing into the goal box, Iniesta beats another defender and Joe Hart, but finds himself barely in bounds. Rather than attempting a shot from an impossible angle, Iniesta looks up and finds his teammate, Dani Alves, in the box unguarded. Alves does what he is now trained to do and slots the ball into the net after a last-minute deflection from a Man-City player. The crowd goes wild, for the game has been won and Barça are into the next phase of the Champions' League. A crazy night and one that I will remember for the rest of my life.
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