Posted by Stephen Kuzner

By Stephen Kuzner - WFD Fan Correspondent



I knew it was going to be a good day on Monday when I fed my one year-old daughter her breakfast. For months I'd been trying to get her to say Barcelona. She's learned how to say Messi because of "messy", but not the full four syllables of Barcelona. Time and time again, "Susie, say Barcelona" ....crickets. As I tried to put-on her FC Barcelona bib this El Clasico morning, she grabbed it pointed to the crest and said "Balona". Being a superstitious nut, this had to be a sign; a foreshadowing of something wonderful and great.

However, "Balona" meant something bigger than Barcelona winning this El Clasico. "Balona" indicated that I would have the divine providence to get through my work-day, come home, have dinner with my parents, put my daughter to bed, pay the bills due the next day, and then finally at 9:00 PM EST be able to watch a DVR'd El Clasico uninterrupted, having dodged anything that could indicate the outcome ahead of time. Have you ever tried to do this sort of thing? In this day and age, evading the result of a game to see it DVR'd is like trying to elude your own shadow on a sunny spring day by doing crossovers on a pitch. I've never done it before. I've pretty much resigned to the fact that I'll know all Champions League and Copa Del Rey results before I get home. Foreknowledge or not, I enjoy them anyway.

Yet, it felt like "Balona" had aligned me God, karma, and luck in a way I had never experienced before. To borrow a line from Ray Hudson, "Lionel Messi can enter a revolving door behind someone and exit ahead of them". But with the power of "Balona", I felt I could avoid learning the outcome of a game arguably as big as the Super Bowl, World Cup Final, and UEFA Champions League Final.

An hour before the game started I phoned my parents to make sure they knew not to fool with the DVR while they baby-sat my daughter and to not accidentally let me know about the game. I was good there. They are reliable. Next step was to go into media-silence: shutdown work email, double-check the Windows Task Manager to make sure Outlook isn't running in the background, (it stinks getting a little pop-up email from FC Barcelona informing you of a result), close Gmail, terminate all social media including LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and AIM, use no applications linked to the Internet Explorer, and turn-off Blackberry to block calls, texts, and variety of emails. I put my head down and made phone-calls for two straight hours without making eye-contact with any co-workers that could stumble across an El Clasico score on ESPN.com and want to inform the office soccer-spaz.

I get through the last two hours of the work-day and exited stage-door left in the office. I put a topcoat overtop of my Barca fleece so no one on the street could ID me as a Barca supporter. I put my head down not to make contact with anyone on the street that could be pouring-out of a pub as I walked to my car. I felt my palms sweating in my pockets. I got in my car and decided not to turn-on the radio. Without my IPod my next best choice is the quiet, own thoughts, and the mighty power of "Balona". I kept my eyes only on the road and not on the faces of any drivers or passengers in other vehicles that could telepathically tell me what happened in El Clasico if I should happenstance make eye-contact with them. The commute was quicker than normal. I decided to pick-up some snacks to munch-on for the game.

I went into the Giant grocery store and realized once I got to the check-out counter that I didn't have my topcoat over my Barca fleece. The cashier looked straight at the Barca crest. I took-off the fleece and folded it under my arm. I felt naked, vulnerable, and dumb. What a stupid and greedy decision to get munchies. I put my head down and left the giant luckily unscathed.

I got home, hugged my daughter, made her say "Balona" three times and had dinner with my parents. My Dad asked me if I wanted to know about the game. My heart quickened. He smiled, a joke. I exhaled. My parents left after dinner and I put my daughter down to bed. At this point the TV in the house was off. My BlackBerry was off. The computer was off. The landline was unplugged. I paid the bills in loud silence. By 9:00 PM EST, I had no knowledge of El Clasico. The only thing that could go wrong at that point would be to turn-on the TV and have the channel set to GolTV or ESPN Deportes exposing me to an El Clasico rebroadcast or its aftermath. Before hitting the power button for the TV, I turned the cable box to CMT. I switched-on the TV. The pause before the image appeared seemed like eternity. For the first time in my life, I was happy to see Toby Keith.

El Clasico was DVR'd four times. I went to the first one recorded from GolTV. The voice of Ray Hudson sounded like Yeats and Phil Schoen like Hemingway. 5 goals and you know the rest by know. I watched the match twice. The power of "Balona" is awesome.

If you have feedback, email me at skuzner@gmail.com or Facebook me. During the club season, I write pieces related to La Liga on Tuesdays and articles about FC Barcelona on Fridays. During El Clásico, I only live, breath, and sleep El Clásico.