1. Barça will win La Liga. It is only a matter of weeks. Perhaps, days. In fact, they could already be champions next Sunday. All they need is for Flick's team to win on Saturday in Pamplona and for Real Madrid not to win on Sunday at Espanyol's ground, and the twenty-ninth league title will be official. It would be ironic if, without playing, Barça won it because an Espanyol team desperate for points ended up gifting them the title. Everyone looks out for themselves, but in football – as in life – there are amusing paradoxes. Whatever the moment Barça is proclaimed champion, fans must refrain from going to Canaletes. Forbidden. The upper part of La Rambla is under construction, the emblematic fountain is covered, and, around it, temporary fences would be a dangerous trap for the thousands of Barça fans who would want to gather there. Barça and the City Council —“of the city that bears our club’s name”— should inform Barça fans this very Monday that La Rambla is waterlogged and should explain where the title will be massively celebrated when the moment arrives.
2. The photograph illustrating this column was taken last week. Besides assuring myself that the Barça fanbase will not be able to follow tradition in celebrating victories, I noted that the undulating tiles that have accompanied us for decades from Canaletes to the sea are now history. What a shame. Collboni has chosen, for the new paving, impersonal tiles, of a sad, incredibly boring greyness. They say, they say, they say that the work on La Rambla will be finished in 2027. By then, there will only be one flower stall – Carolina’s – the restaurant terraces will be narrower, they will have unified the chair model, and they will no longer be able to hang misleading promotional photos of paellas and sangrias. The bird sellers will no longer return. Let's hope there are no ticket stalls either, nor souvenirs of bread rubbed with oil. When Barça wins its third consecutive league title — and perhaps the Champions League that obsesses the coach — Canaletes must be flowing with fresh water. Those who drink from it say they return to the city. Those who don't drink it, do too. In fact, it's not that they don't return, it's that no one wants to leave here anymore.
3. This week, following another splendid Sant Jordi, we have heard that great world figures such as Amélie Nothomb, Joël Dicker, or Ali Smith were left open-mouthed by Sant Jordi and the unique spirit that is lived in the center of Barcelona, with permission from the side effects of plane tree fruits. They are authors who have traveled the world, with the red carpet, dedicating books to everything and anything, but they have discovered that there is nothing comparable to our great festival of love. They know that there are Book Days in many cities on the planet, but there is only one Sant Jordi. They had experienced it and wanted to repeat it. The rose and the books are unbeatable. Also for those who are not writers and experience it for the first time. A friend from Turin, who had never been here on April 23rd, left home at ten in the morning and, at nine in the evening, her watch indicated that she had walked more than twenty kilometers. Beyond the shock of being trapped inside a bookstore and not being able to get out, she was fascinated by a human spectacle that she could not explain in words. Not even with the photos she posted on Instagram. The next day, with the city back to normal, I accompanied her on foot from the Jardinets de Gràcia to Consell de Cent, where we walked without hurry. She didn't want to leave. She wanted to stay and live here. She understood her cousin, an expert in mathematics, who settled in L'Eixample eleven years ago and has not moved. Then the star was Messi, now it is Lamine Yamal. But Barcelona continues to be Barcelona, the city of wonders. Perhaps.
