The city of common sense. That’s what the people of Barcelona used to call their city. I liked it. It was a beautiful city and I think I felt at home there from the second day on (if I said from the very first day I’d be exaggerating) but the club wasn’t doing so well, and people started going kind of sour, it always happens, I’m speaking from experience, at first the fans want your autograph, they hang around outside the hotel, they’re so friendly it’s exhausting, but then you have a run of bad luck, which leads to another, and soon enough they start making faces, maybe you’re just lazy, they think, or partying too much, or whoring, you know what I mean, people start to take an interest in what you’re getting paid, they speculate, they calculate, and there’s always a wise guy who’ll come out and accuse you of being a thief or something a thousand times worse. This stuff happens everywhere, I’d already been through it once, but that was back home, in my country, and this time I was a foreigner, and the press and the fans always expect something extra special from foreigners.
