“The child will not go to class, he has a doctor’s appointment.”

At 7:37 a.m., I receive a message from my brother Cesc: “North corner. Main forward. Row 1, number 3. Check the seat.” The message is a gentle command, a filtered pass to memory. I know exactly what he meant: go back, enter, go up the stands, find that seat that is also part of our childhood, and see how it feels now, amidst the construction. Like someone returning to the room where they learned to dream.

Returning to Camp Nou, still in skeletal form, felt like a rite of passage. The club called it an “open training session,” but it wasn't training. It was a civic pilgrimage. 23,000 souls to watch the squad jog gently on freshly groomed grass. There was no opponent, no VAR, no surprise lineup, no epic moment. Just rondos, stretching, and inside jokes. And yet, there we were, in the place we'd learned was where collective happiness lay.

Vice President Elena Fort wept as she remembered her loved ones. She wept for the empty chair that each of us keeps somewhere in the stadium. That chair where those who taught us to watch Barça with open eyes and unburdened hearts used to sit. That emotional rollercoaster that only football , or life, can provoke—which in the end is the same thing. Just ask Joan Laporta, yesterday the very image of the emotional Barça fan that we all carry inside (or outside).

There was an invisible choreography in the stands. Grandparents pointing at the goal as if it were a map: “There, right there, I remember….” An indecent number of parents who had practiced a lie that has worked for generations: “The child won’t be in school today, he has a doctor’s appointment,” while the children stared at the grass, hunting for Lamine Yamal.

Even dismantled, Camp Nou still knows how to say who you are, who we are...

The new Camp Nou (with Spotify prominently displayed) was like a body ripped open, a novel half-written. Unfinished corridors, exposed pipes, fresh cement, and three yellow cranes like metallic giraffes. Nothing finished, nothing elegant, nothing Instagrammable . And yet, everything was perfectly recognizable. It was like walking into your house and knowing where things were even if you couldn't see them. The Camp Nou, even dismantled, still knows how to say who you are, who we are...

Then there was the PA system. A kind of acoustic euphoria at an unnecessary, almost comical volume. As always. The playlist oscillated between current hits ( Si antes te hubiera conocido – Karol G), immortal nineties classics ( Freed from Desire – Gala), and the definitively timeless ( Take On Me – Aha). It seemed as if someone had decided that if the stadium wasn't full, at least the PA system would be. Long live Spotify!

The return was beautiful, but not with a pristine beauty, rather one that still carries dust. We have returned without having truly returned. Like when you enter your old room, now a storage room, and still recognize the light without the lamp.

We don't know when the big day will come. The day of the true return. The day of the first match. The day of the family seats (red, Cesc, our seat is red!). We only know that on that day even the dull Ter Stegen will cry because this club oozes emotion even in training.

Returning to Camp Nou, even in its skeletal form, felt somewhat like an initiation rite.

And then we will understand that this imperial stadium is not just any place. It is a portable homeland that, at last, we will have recovered.