WATCH: Barcelona celebrates with club anthem as it leaves its home, Camp Nou, for renovation
La Liga champion Barcelona enjoyed a series of emotional goodbyes in its final match at Camp Nou before the stadium is rebuilt, thrashing Real Mallorca 3-0 on Sunday.
Captain Sergio Busquets and defender Jordi Alba also played at home for the last time, in the club’s penultimate league match of the season, and were awarded warm farewells by the sell-out crowd.
Camp Nou, inaugurated in September 1957, has been one of football’s most iconic stadiums. Barcelona will play its home games next season at the Olympic Stadium on Montjuic, a hill in the city, aiming for a return to the rebuilt Camp Nou in November 2024 if construction goes to plan.
The tribute in the stadium, with more than 88,000 spectators present started with the locution of the poem by Josep Maria de Sagarra that was read on the day of its inauguration in 1957 and with the placement of six giant shirts on the grass, one for each decade, which have been placed by representatives of different groups of the club.
Then a sardana around the central circle became the centre of the party. Formed by members of different groups, as well as Sardanista partners, it danced a version of the Barça Song offered by the Cobla Principal de Terrassa.
The audience did not hesitate in joining the party singing the culé anthem to the rhythm of the music.