THE MOST BEAUTIFUL GAME

Yesterday, we arrived in Barcelona from Seattle after a 14 hour journey to begin our holidays on Saturday. The highlight of this leg of our trip was to be a match at the Camp Nou. That match was supposed to have taken place on a Sunday, but the club moved the fixture to Saturday afternoon approximately three and a half hours after our scheduled arrival time.

For that reason, I was quite concerned when it was announced that our first flight from Seattle to Frankfurt was delayed. We only had 60 minutes for our connection in Frankfurt to begin with, and this delay meant that things would be even tighter.

Fortunately, we made up time in the area. However, the bus to the terminal, customs, and security lacked the expected German efficiency, and we only had five minutes to get to our terminal after security before our flight departed. This was quite familiar territory for us, and so we took off on a sprint.

We made it to our gate with a few minutes to spare and safely boarded. We arrived in Barcelona with plenty of time to clean up at our apartment prior to the game. I do not believe in God, but fate once again clearly conspired to get us to this game on time!

Last year, from friends at Nike back in Portland connected us with Marcos Garzo from Nike Spain. He has generously connected us with tickets again this year. This time, we were in the VIP Sala Room area of skyboxes. Our visit to Sala Roma also came with "hospitality," or catering and open bar. The food and drink were amazing and were only matched by the team's exploits on the field.

We started off quickly with a second minute goal from Pedro from a beautiful Rakitic assist. AT halftime, the score was 1-0 for Barca. Luis Suarez, the Uruguayan striker, opened up his La Liga scoring account for the first time, which made it 2-0. The central defender Gerard Pique headed home a beautiful cross from the aging playmaker Xavi - the best player ever to play central midfield in my opinion - to make it 3-0. Then, late in the game, Messi, scored two clinical goals. The second was a work of art. He controlled a cross with the outside of his left boot, quickly pirouetted, and then struck the ball across his body with his "weaker" right foot. Clinical!

All in all it was an amazing night for the kids who had never seen Xavi play or Messi score. This Barca team never ceases to amaze me, too. They have my heart, and I will always cherish the memories of seeing them play this most beautiful of beautiful games!