'Goosebumps' read the headline of major Barcelona newspaper 'SPORT' at newsstands across the city on Sunday morning. Los Cules ended their two-and-a-half year, 909-day Spotify Camp Nou exile in style with a convincing 4-0 win over Athletic Club.
Culers young and old reacquainted themselves with their pre-match rituals, paused for so long. Les Corts metro station bustled once more on a Saturday afternoon. Those who had looked longingly down from Montjuic, where the team had spent the past 29 months, tutting at the bureaucracy of an engineering project of such scale, shelved their complaints - this was a day to be enjoyed.
Since its inauguration in 1957, the Spotify Camp Nou, as it is now termed for sponsorship purposes, has played host to Barcelona's home fixtures. Only on the rarest of occasions has the team played home matches elsewhere. A hiatus of almost two-and-a-half years is a strange situation for any football club to find itself in, never mind one with as strong a cultural identity as the Catalan giants.
Barcelona's new era has finally begun with return to Spotify Camp Nou
A lot can happen in 909 days, not least the relinquishing and regaining of a league title, as well as the emergence of the one player in world football who appears capable of challenging the legendary Lionel Messi's Barcelona legacy.
The make-up of this Barça team has changed, too. Sergio Busquets, Gerard Pique, Memphis Depay, Jordi Alba and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang were all on the club's pay-roll the last time a competitive match was hosted at Spotify Camp Nou.
In November 2025, there is youth, freedom and individuality which imbues each of Hansi Flick's starting line-ups; a squad true to the club's La Masia academy heritage.
For the visit of Athletic Club, head coach Flick selected five players in his starting line-up who had, incredibly, not yet made their full debuts for Barcelona at Spotify Camp Nou - Gerard Martin, Pau Cubarsi, Fermin Lopez, Dani Olmo and Lamine Yamal - all five academy graduates, four of whom born locally.
Only one, Yamal, had a prior appearance at the club's iconic home stadium - a mere seven-minute cameo against Real Betis back in April 2023, aged just 15 years, weeks before construction commenced.
Yamal is 18 now, a Ballon d'Or runner-up, as well as a LaLiga and European champion; Cubarsi is the future of the Spanish national team, meanwhile Lopez marked his 100th appearance in Blaugrana during Saturday's 4-0 victory.
These players are the very fabric of Barcelona, boys from the city, Fermin aside, and yet none had made any sort of meaningful contribution at Spotify Camp Nou - but played as though they'd never been away.
Casual observers over the past couple of years, particularly those outside Spain, would often remark at Barça games being played up on the hill, at Estadi Olímpic Lluís Companys.
Barcelona had the household names, the red-and-blue stripes, the tangible success of silverware, even, everything that makes them 'Mes Que Un Club', but it didn't look quite right. Imagine Manchester United playing somewhere other than Old Trafford or Liverpool walking out to 'You'll Never Walk Alone' at a different ground.
On Saturday, admission was capped at 45,157, close to half the stadium's previous capacity and some 60,000 short of the proposed 105,000 complement. Few seemed to care that renovations are yet to be completed. They were just happy to be home.
Barcelona's new era has been on hold for some time now. It is a decade since the club's last Champions League title, four years since Messi last graced Spotify Camp Nou and until last weekend, over two years since the team had even played there.
As 'Cant del Barça' rang out and scarves swirled following a quite routine victory, the idea that this was, not so long ago, a club in the midst of an identity crisis, seemed nonsensical. Of the 16 Barça players to feature against Athletic, nine were Catalans.
Given the mid-season nature and limited capacity of the stadium's reopening, it would be easy for detractors to suggest a new era led by locally-crafted protagonists hadn't yet begun, but in truth it has. Everything else is in place, Spotify Camp Nou is just the final piece.
