When I read that a coach complains because the fans do not support him or because his team always plays in a stadium that is foreign to him, I think of Badalona Futur.
Badalona Futur plays without fans. And he has been competing away from home all season.
And yet, despite the regrets, he is the leader of his category, in Group 3 of the 2nd RFEF.
Álex Maspons, who serves as advisor to Badalona Futur, has put me on the track. I have been talking to Maspons for years. He is the son of Oriol Maspons, a legendary photojournalist who left this world in 2013. Álex and I studied Law together. We sat in the last row and, between classes, we shared sports newspapers. The man learned them by heart.
He knows everything about sports.
He tells me:
–Wherever Badalona Futur plays, they are insulted. They say that the club embodies the worst of modern football. That does not respect traditional values. That does not understand the meaning of a shield, origins, a feeling towards colors or a history and should not exist.
(…)
Years ago, Badalona Futur was called Llagostera, a always modest club that in 2014 was going to break the mold: it was promoted to 2nd A.
It then became Unió Esportiva Costa Brava.
And then, Toni Freixa agreed to his presidency.
Freixa was a Barça manager during the times of Rosell and Bartomeu, and is a professor of Sports Law, and last summer, with Lucas Viale at the helm, he got involved in an exercise that turned out to be regular: in his attempt to reinvigorate the Unió Esportiva Costa Brava, they wanted to merge it with Badalona CF. Thus, the entity would be established near Barcelona, ??it would become strong in a city of 215,000 inhabitants and it would have a suitable stadium, the Municipal de Badalona, ??with 4,000 spectators.
At first there was a yes and then a no, and in the end a definitive no and the Futur was stranded in an uncomfortable present, without a stadium (the mayor’s office has not given it permission to play in the Municipal of Badalona) and without a city.
Even without a stadium and without a city, Freixa decided to move forward. He looked for investors and assembled a competitive squad, with Catalans, Basques and even a Senegalese, proven footballers in the category but condemned to train and play 60 km from Badalona, ??in the Hipòlit Planàs stadium in Vic, the only one that housed him.
–And even playing at home in front of the Vigitano public, who limits themselves to shouting “goal” when the team scores, Badalona Futur is the leader –Álex Maspons insists to me, while adding–: seen this way, it gives the impression that the fans do not It is as necessary as we think, right?
I don’t really know what to answer, but the reality is that player number 12 doesn’t play, he just shouts.
And sometimes, it doesn’t even need to be done.
