Joan Solé: Fear, the Barça stand? More are caused by those who wear a tie

On WhatsApp, he has the kind of profile picture that also serves him for LinkedIn: "It's one of the few where I look good." But Joan Solé has accumulated more than one hundred and fifty thousand followers on Instagram and TikTok and videos with tens of millions of views precisely because he doesn't put his face in front of the camera, but rather documents the rituals, history, and culture surrounding Futbol Club Barcelona. He has launched Cultura a la Grada, an initiative "that defends a way of experiencing Barça far removed from modern football".

I close my eyes: tell me the memory with which you explain what it means to be a Barça fan.

— We are watching a Madrid-Barça game with my father and my brother in the living room at home in the early 2000s, in the middle of a trophy drought. Rivaldo scores the 2-3 in the last minute, we hug each other and scream like crazy. The referee disallows it, I am left frozen. My father tells us "That is what being a Barça fan is about".

Can you define this "this"?

— That the most important thing is not to win, but to stand your ground. That football must be lived with passion and joy. And that Barça accompanies you throughout your life and unites all generations of the family.

When do you realize that this is in danger?

— First when Rosell changes Unicef for Qatar. Then when at the 2019 classic, which we win 5-1, I find that around me there are no longer the usual ones, but a group of French tourists celebrating the Madrid goal. Priorities change, business comes first, ticket prices skyrocket. The club moves away from its people.

Is this money not essential for competing?

— It is a false dichotomy. The best Barça in history was built starting from La Masia, and the current one, too. Billing more does not equate to playing better. We are not Barça fans because it is the club that bills the most or the one that has the most titles, but because of what it represents.

How is a match experienced from the cheering section?

— You feel like you are part of the action. You see how the players receive your support and, many times, they thank you for it. It is a space of resistance to modern football, of vindication of the club's values. The beauty of the Camp Nou is that there coexist the one who is with an earpiece listening to the radio and the one who spends the match standing with a megaphone.

What would you say to someone who sees you and gets scared?

— Fear, the Barça stand? More are caused by those who wear ties and want our stadium to be just another tourist experience in the city. The welcomes for the bus with flares, the chants, or the flags waving during the match are to convey a passion that we have inherited and want to pass on to new generations. The first ones interested in criminalizing the stand are those who want everything to be a business. Having a fanbase that still experiences the support with passion is a treasure we cannot lose.

What do we need to know about the new generation of Barça fans?

— Young people are enthusiastic about a team that aspires to everything and has players who are the same age as them. At the same time, it is a generation that has it worse than ever to build a life project within their country and find a good job to continue living in their neighborhood. How do they manage it? By being more combative and uninhibited.

It is said that there would have been no Process without the Barça of Messi and Guardiola.

— Barça has been linked to the country since its origins and represents the struggle of the Catalans against Spanish centralism. The same frustration that these days is expressed in the fight for housing, in young people with national consciousness, can also be expressed in the fight for the country's freedom. That is why at the Diada more Barça shirts were seen than ever before.

So, can Flick's Barça revive the independence movement?

— Barça can light the fuse, but it must be politics that picks up the baton.

The political vocabulary of this generation seems very different from the previous one.

— There is a great lack of inhibition when it comes to saying things clearly. In the same way that, if you ask Lamine Yamal, he tells you that he deserves the Ballon d'Or, one of these young people will tell you that they want independence no matter what and that "F*** Spain". The new generation does not need to apologize all the time.

Does this lack of inhibition help to explain the rise of Aliança Catalana?

— After a decade without leadership changes in the pro-independence parties, a group has emerged that speaks uninhibitedly about topics that are supposedly off-limits, and that criticizes the leaders of the 'Procés' and Spanish nationalism in very explicit and forceful ways. This language seems to resonate with young people. Although it remains to be seen how it will materialize electorally.

What is the coexistence like between Barça fans with different ideas?

— We are all united by the fact that we want to see a champion Barça. If all the pro-independence parties had the same attitude, we would have been a republic for nine years now.

I imagine people anticipating a dark side to this lack of inhibition.

— This generation has become politicized in the post-Process, with the undoing of parties and organizations. There is an analogy between this suspicion you mention, that which is awakened by passionate animation, and that which was caused by the young people of Urquinaona. All of this is labeled as violent, because it is hard to understand that there are people who comprehend that the confrontation with the Spanish state is much more serious than what we were told during the Process and, at the same time, is willing to make more sacrifices to achieve the objectives.

How does this change make you feel?

— Very comfortable, because there is no turning point or confrontation between generations, but rather an evolution and an accumulation of learning that can unite us all.