November 23, 2002: El Clásico, the biggest sports rivalry in Spain, is played. It becomes the most famous game in the rivalry, but not for anything that was part of the actual game.
The country's 2 biggest soccer teams are Real Madrid Club de Fútbol and Futbol Club Barcelona. Real Madrid, the more successful of the two, became identified with the national government of Fascist leader Francisco Franco. Barcelona became identified with the resistance of the people of the Autonomous Community of Catalonia, which opposed Franco and the Fascists, and were seriously oppressed. They are so deeply engrained in Catalan culture that they have adopted the slogan "Mes Que Un Club" (More Than a Club). It's even "written" into the seats at their stadium, the 98,000-seat Camp Nou.
As a result, Real Madrid have been seen as a "cheating" club, somehow turning draws into wins and losses into draws, with dives for penalties and "horror tackles" overlooked by the referees. Eventually, Barcelona learned how to do that, too, especially in European tournaments like the UEFA Champions League, to the point where they became known as "UEFAlona."
Luís Figo was a winger from outside Lisbon, Portugal. He had starred for Sporting Clube de Portugal (a.k.a. "Sporting Lisbon") before Barcelona bought him in 1995. He helped "Barça" win La Liga in 1998 and 1999, and became their most popular player.
Former Real Madrid captain Manolo Sanchis said Figo was his stiffest opponent, even more of a handful than Diego Maradona: "All by himself, he drove us crazy, dribbling us. He was a tremendous player, a crack."
Real Madrid, who had won the UEFA Champions League in 1998 and 2000, had a new club president, Florentino Pérez. He didn't just want the team to reassert themselves: He wanted to send Barça a message, and metaphorically stab their fans in the heart. So he promised Real fans that he would sign Figo, who had a buyout clause of €62 million. (If he could get it done, it would be a world record for a transfer fee for a "footballer": About $68 million, or about 21 times what Barça had paid for him 5 years earlier.)
Contrasting this stance with that of outgoing club president Lorenzo Sanz, ousted in a club election in favor of Pérez, Diego Torres, writing for Madrid newspaper El Pais (The Country), in Madrid, said, "This promise fulfilled all the superpower fantasies of Madridistas. Will he destroy Barcelona with a single cheque? They didn’t give a shit for Lorenzo Sanz and his European Cups." In other words, Pérez was going to make it personal, and Real's fans ate it up.
Figo had been trying to renegotiate his Barcelona contract, but the club was stalling. This made him receptive to a move. But he was stuck: He couldn't tell anyone the deal was done until it was legal to announce it. But word got out, and he denied it. In other words, he lied. And the Cules believed him. When the deal was announced on July 25, 2000, the reaction in Catalonia was fury and a sense of betrayal: Not only had he gone to their arch-rivals, but he had lied about it.
Luís Figo
(Cules is a nickname for Barcelona supporters. At the stadium they used from 1922 to 1957, fans made an artificial last row of the stands by sitting on the ledge, with their rear ends, or "cules" in Romance languages, over the edge. So the most common name for Barcelona fans is, literally, "asses.")
The next game between the teams was at the Camp Nou in Barcelona on October 21, 2000 -- the same day as Game 1 of the World Series between the New York Yankees and the New York Mets, but even Met fans don't hate the Yankees as much as the Cules hate the Madridistas and their team. Every time Figo touched the ball, the booing and whistling (often equivalent to booing in Europe) was intense. One banner in the stands read, "We hate you so much, because we loved you so much." Barcelona won, 2-0.
But the Figo signing began the "Galácticos" era of Real Madrid, signing the best players in the world, and not caring how much it cost. They already had Raúl (González), Guti (real name: José María Gutiérrez), Fernando Hierro, Roberto Carlos, Fernando Morientes, Míchel Salgado, and goalkeeper Iker Casillas. To these were added Figo, Claude Makélélé, Zinedine Zidane, and finally Ronaldo (the Brazilian one, not the later Portuguese star Cristiano Ronaldo, although Real did eventually sign him, too). It worked, as Los Blancos won the Champions League in 2002.
Raúl wore Number 7. He became known as "El Siete." The Seven. Even Figo, who wore 7 for Barcelona and for the Portugal national team, knew that he couldn't talk Raúl into giving the number up. So he switched to 10.
On November 23, 2002, a few days after Figo's 30th birthday, Real Madrid returned to the Camp Nou. It was a 9:00 PM start, so the fans had more time to have pregame drinks than usual. Every time Figo came within throwing range of Barça fans, objected rained down on him: Beer cans, bottles, golf balls, even cigarette lighters. In the 2nd half, with the score 0-0, Figo, the team's regular taker of corner kicks, went to take one. More objects fell near him. He turned around, smiled, and made a thumbs-up gesture, to let them know that they weren't going to stop him.
But the referee, Luis Medina Cantalejo, had seen enough, and he decided the game had to stop, long enough for the throwing to stop and the debris to be cleared. For 16 minutes, there was no action. At one point, a pig's head was found on the edge of the pitch, preserved the way it would be if the entire pig were to be roasted. The message was clear: "Figo, you're a pig." The TV cameras caught the image, and the whole world saw it.
The game was finally resumed, and Figo's corner came to nothing. At 11:08 PM, the final whistle was blown, and the game remained goalless.
Figo, Zidane, and the rest helped Real Madrid win La Liga in that 2002-03 season, Figo's 2nd league title with them, along with the 2 he won at Barcelona. In 2005, he left for Internazionale Milano, and won 4 Serie A (Italian league) titles with them, then retired.
Real Madrid and FC Barcelona, and each team's fans, still hate each other's guts. And Barça fans still have not forgiven Figo. I suppose it hasn't occurred to them that if their own team had renegotiated his contract like he'd asked, he might not have gone.
*
November 23, 2002 was a Saturday. In English soccer, Arsenal traveled to Hampshire, and lost to Southampton, 3-2 at the St. Mary's Stadium.
El Clásico wasn't the only major rivalry being played that day. It was the beginning of Rivalry Week in American college football. Actually, no: The beginning was 3 days earlier, on Wedneasday night, when West Virginia upset Number 13 Virginia Tech, 21-18 at Lane Stadium in Blacksburg, Virginia. On Thursday night, Number 1 Miami beat Number 17 Pittsburgh, 28-21 at the Orange Bowl stadium in Miami. This clinched the Big East Conference title.
But among the games played on that Saturday:
* Rivalry: Number 2 Ohio State beat Number 12 Michigan, 14-9 at Ohio Stadium in Columbus. Ohio State thus won the Big Ten Conference title, and beat Miami in a controversial Fiesta Bowl to win the Bowl Championship Series National Championship.
* Rivalry: Number 3 Washington State were upset by Washington, 29-26 in the "Apple Cup" at Martin Stadium in Pullman, Washington. "Wazzu" still won the Pacific-Ten Conference title.
* Number 4 Oklahoma beat Number 24 Texas Tech, 60-15 at Memorial Stadium, a.k.a. Owen Field, in Norman, Oklahoma. Oklahoma then beat Colorado in the Big 12 Conference Championship Game, and, since Ohio State was Number 2 and locked into the BCS title game, were invited to the Rose Bowl as the now-Number 3 team. They beat Washington State.
* Number 5 Iowa had completed its regular season. They tied Ohio State for 1st in the Big 10, but they didn't play each other, and Ohio State had the higher ranking, so they went to the BCS title game.
* Number 6 Georgia had the week off, in preparation for next week's game against arch-rival Georgia Tech. They won that game, then beat Arkansas in the Southeastern Conference Championship Game.
* Rivalry: Number 7 USC, the University of Southern California, beat Number 25 UCLA, the University of California at Los Angeles, 52-21 at the Rose Bowl outside Los Angeles in Pasadena, California. USC thus finished in a tie with Washington State for the Pac-10 title. But since Wazzu had beaten USC head-to-head, this would be the only game USC would play at the Rose Bowl stadium that season. USC went to the Orange Bowl, where they beat Iowa.
* Number 8 Notre Dame beat Rutgers, 42-0 at Notre Dame Stadium in South Bend, Indiana.
* Rivalry: Number 9 Alabama were upset by Auburn, 17-7 in the "Iron Bowl" at Bryant-Denny Stadium in Tuscaloosa. 'Bama still finished 1st in the SEC Western Division, but were on probation, and not permitted to play in the SEC Championship Game.
* Number 10 Kansas State beat Missouri, 38-0 at Faurot Field in Columbia, Missouri.
* Number 14 Florida State were upset by North Carolina State, 17-7 at Carter-Finley Stadium in Raleigh, North Carolina. FSU still won the Atlantic Coast Conference title, but lost the Sugar Bowl to Georgia.
* Rivalry: Number 18 Maryland were upset by Virginia, 48-13 at Scott Stadium in Charlottesville, Virginia.
* Rivalry: North Carolina beat Duke, 23-21 at Wallace Wade Stadium in Durham, North Carolina.
* Rivalry: Tennessee beat Vanderbilt, 24-0 at Vanderbilt Stadium (now First Bank Stadium) in Nashville.
* Rivalry: Purdue beat Indiana, 34-10 for the "Old Oaken Bucket" at Ross-Ade Stadium in West Lafayette, Indiana.
* Rivalry: Illinois beat Northwestern, 31-24 at Ryan Field outside Chicago in Evanston, Illinois.
* Rivalry: Wisconsin beat Minnesota, 49-31 for "Paul Bunyan's Axe" at Camp Randall Stadium in Madison, Wisconsin.
* Rivalry: Utah beat Brigham Young, 13-6 in the "Holy War" at Rice-Eccles Stadium in Salt Lake City, Utah.
* Rivalry: The University of California beat Stanford, 30-7 in "The Big Game" at the original California Memorial Stadium in Berkeley.
* Rivalry: Oregon State beat Oregon, 45-24 in "The Civil War" at Reser Stadium in Corvallis, Oregon.
* And among the service academies, Army lost to the University of Memphis, 38-10 at the Liberty Bowl (now Simmons Bank Liberty Stadium) in Memphis; Navy lost to Wake Forest, 30-27 at Groves Stadium (now Allegacy Federal Credit Union Stadium) in Winston-Salem, North Carolina; and Air Force lost to San Diego State, 38-34 at Falcon Field in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
Baseball was out of season. There were 9 games played in the NBA:
* The New Jersey Nets beat the Minnesota Timberwolves, 96-82 at the Target Center in Minneapolis.
* The Boston Celtics beat the Atlanta Hawks, 109-99 at the Philips Arena (now the State Farm Arena) in Atlanta.
* The Memphis Grizzlies beat the Washington Wizards, 85-74 at the Great American Pyramid in Memphis.
* The New Orleans Hornets beat the Cleveland Cavaliers, 97-84 at the Gund Arena (now the Rocket Arena) in Cleveland.
* The Detroit Pistons beat the Indiana Pacers, 106-91 at the Bankers Life Fieldhouse (now the Gainbridge Fieldhouse) in Indianapolis
* The Dallas Mavericks beat the Seattle SuperSonics, 115-105 at the American Airlines Center in Dallas.
* The Utah Jazz beat the Chicago Bulls, 110-90 at the Delta Center in Salt Lake City.
* The Denver Nuggets beat the Phoenix Suns, 80-79 at the America West Arena (now the Mortgage Matchup Center) in Phoenix.
* And the Sacramento Kings beat the Portland Trail Blazers, 95-94 at the Rose Garden (now the Moda Center) in Portland.
And there were 13 games in the NHL:
* Speaking of rivalries, the New York Islanders beat the New York Rangers, 3-1 at Madison Square Garden.
* The New Jersey Devils lost to the Tampa Bay Lightning, 3-1 at the Continental Airlines Arena at the Meadowlands.
* The Carolina Hurricanes beat the Montreal Canadiens, 7-3 at the Bell Centre in Montreal.
* The Ottawa Senators beat the Columbus Blue Jackets, 5-2 at the Corel Centre (now the Canadian Tire Centre) in Ottawa.
* The Boston Bruins beat the Buffalo Sabres, 4-1 at the FleetCenter (now the TD Garden) in Boston.
* The Washington Capitals beat the Atlanta Thrashers, 6-3 at the MCI Center (now the Capital One Arena) in Washington.
* The Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Philadelphia Flyers, 6-0 at the Air Canada Centre (now the Scotiabank Arena) in Toronto.
* The Pittsburgh Penguins beat the San Jose Sharks, 4-1 at the Mellon Arena (as the Pittsburgh Civic Arena was then known).
* The Minnesota Wild beat the Nashville Predators, 4-2 at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, Minnesota.
* The Colorado Avalanche beat the St. Louis Blues, 3-1 at the Savvis Center (now the Enterprise Center) in St. Louis.
* The Calgary Flames beat the Chicago Blackhawks, 3-1 at the Saddledome in Calgary.
* The Detroit Red Wings and the Edmonton Oilers played to a 1-1 tie at the Skyreach Centre (as the Northlands Coliseum was then known) in Edmonton.
* And the Los Angeles Kings beat the Dallas Stars, 2-0 at the Staples Center (now the Crypto.com Arena) in Los Angeles.
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