Tourists and onlookers watched this Monday as two boats crossed the waters of the port of Barcelona with a bunch of smiling young people on board. They were the players of CN Atlètic Barceloneta, who were showing anyone who wanted to see it the most dreamed-of cup: the water polo Champions League. After more than a decade of hard work, with hits taken and disappointments, the sailor team won its second European crown a few months ago. And to present the new season, the club boasted of the achievement: "When a few months ago we went to Malta to play the final phase, we first did a kind of symbolic act with a boat through the port, to bond. And now that we have won, we have repeated it," said captain Alberto Munárriz. And that is how traditions are born. Within the club, it has already been internalized that if one reigns in Europe, they will cross the port on a boat every season. But president Julían García is not satisfied. He wants more. "One day we will all make this boat trip together. You are the next ones," he said, looking at the players of the women's team.

"Codfish? Dry! Codfish? Dry!" is the name of the Atlético Barceloneta pool. It's the cry of fishermen selling their fish a century ago, when water polo first began in Barcelona. The cry still given before matches by a water polo team that has become the great Dream Team. of modern Catalan sport. This weekend, Barceloneta travels to Malta to play the final four of the Champions League, the most elusive trophy. The semi-final will be on Friday (7:30 p.m.) against Serbia's Novi Beograd, and the final will be on Sunday. The second semi-final pits Hungary's Ferencváros, the reigning champions, against France's CN Marseille. The sailors' team has won the last 20 editions of the Spanish league, but has only been crowned European champion once, in 2014, when they defeated Barcelona's Picornell at the Radnički Kragujevac swimming pools. From that team, only two survivors remain, Felipe Perrone and Alberto Munárriz.

The beaches of Rio de Janeiro were his childhood playground, his current office has sea views, his son was born at the Hospital del Mar in Barcelona, and when he has vacations, he boards a sailboat to relax with his wife somewhere with a sea. Felipe Perrone (Rio de Janeiro, 1986) is a man of the sea who one day, at just 15 years old, decided to leave the Atlantic Ocean for the Mediterranean, following in his brother Kiko's footsteps to return to his grandmother's homeland, Catalonia. He had a dream. "I've achieved much more than that teenager ever expected," says Perrone, 39, in a conversation with ARA in a room at the Club Natació Atlètic Barceloneta (CNAB). Evidently, it has sea views.