Ernest Lluch went to Camp Nou with a book because he was bored. I didn’t say anything, like when I was young and on some occasions I spoke to Luis Suárez -“an excellent player that we lost partly because of the public, who often made mistakes with footballers”-, and I never always argued with his former supporters or with those closest to him like Xavier Trias or Màrius Carol. Menudo preferred to chat with his friends Josep Maria Carreras, Teresa Coch or the gallery owner Joan Gaspar, who entered the stadium through gate 15, mouth 208. There was even a moment when the lights analyzed the trip with Lluís Foix in the program Cafe Bavaria directed by Xavier Bosch in Rac1. Y, a polemicist by nature, only attended media debates like the one organized by TV-3 and presented by Pere Escobar with the title On the contrary camp where the Barça-Madrid dispute was discussed.
Some of his thoughts on FC Barcelona were written in the book Amb bleu sofert and ammb grana intenspublished by Proa in 1999 on the occasion of Barça’s 100th anniversary, following a conversation with journalist and friend Robert Álvarez. “Lighting up Barça is relatively easy because it is a money-making machine,” he said, questioning the policy of President Josep Lluís Núñez, who accused him of reducing the club to a store in times of technical market: “The worst of the games that happened to Barcelona in recent years was the place to sell to Ronaldo (…) it is about winning, a bell of giving a show (…) Increase size of the screen by 25%”, reflected Lluch, also criticizing the works on the stadium stand because they have worsened the elegant architecture of Francesc Mitjans.
He never intended to be economic vice-president, much less president, although he ran in the 2000 elections in the candidacy of Lluís Bassat as a member of the social committee and aspired to exercise a role similar to that of Nicolau Casaus, a director “who behaved well and assumed the sympathy of the people and the rest of Spain”. “Casaus is like Tarradellas and Núñez is like Pujol (Jordi),” said Lluch, who would be assassinated by ETA on November 21, 2000, a few months after Joan Gaspart proclaimed himself Núñez’s successor.
Lluch’s legacy as an economist, university professor, historian, socialist politician and Minister of Health – the driving force behind universal public health – was definitively reclaimed in the year 2025, which marks the 25th anniversary of the terrorist attack committed in the garage of his home in Barcelona.
It wasn’t even smaller and its ties to the sport and Barça weren’t any less familiar either. Lluch was a very good mid-level athlete who raced whenever he could with an expert like Romà Cuyàs. He supported sport as a necessity for the integral formation of the person, surely inherited from the classics. sportsmen arrived in the country at the beginning of the 20th century and also very aware of the policies promoted by the Mancomunitat de Cataluña (1914-1924). The slogan “sport i ciutadania” of the last three years, during the popular Olympic Games of 1936 organized as an alternative to the Hitler Games, could not have been extraordinary in its character either. Very humanist, he had an insatiable curiosity and an encyclopedic character, he was very cultured and never heard of, promoter of the sporting cause and the Azulgrana, renowned ambassador of Barcelona.
A lover of history, he dominated the past of the Barcelona player and dared with the future because he was a regular at the parties of the lower teams, especially the youth and the branch, and was on the verge of those who were the promises of the Masia. Take the diaries and go to the Miniestadi evenings because the field is close to you and you like to share with the supporters present on how to promote young people, instruct professionals on investment plans and support veterans to get a good jubilation, as in love as they are with Barça by Les Cinc Copes (1952). Lluch was a lifelong Barcelona player, even when he was Minister of Health and Consumer Affairs (1982-1986), present at the Zorrilla stadium in Valladolid when Terry Venables’ team won the 1985 League after Urruti saved a Mágico González penalty.
I also have an apartment in San Sebastián to study and think and I intend to be a shareholder of Real Sociedad. A student who contributed to the doctoral thesis offered it as a thank you for an action of the Donosti club. Xavi Bosch also admitted that he loves Lecce and Sant Andreu t-shirts. This explains why he was in favor of Barça’s second jersey being reserved exclusively for the colors of the Catalan flag.
The Azulgrana club and the Fundación Lluch signed an agreement precisely in 2013 which was renewed in 2023 until 2026. Although the collaboration for the current season has not yet been defined, it is expected that Barça will also disappear at the end of the program of acts of 25 senses Anys Ernest Lluch. Today, on the way to Camp Nou, some of us remember each departure day when we took the HB Ernest Lluch-Bon Pastor bus and got off at the Travessera 73-129 stop. On several occasions he was described better than Antonio Muñoz Molina: “With their large glasses, their flequillo, their Catalan accent, they were those people who, seen from the outside, seemed a little absent-minded and absent-minded, but they combined visible distraction with unerring acuity. How much more they seemed immersed in nothing, they remained more attentive and observant” written in an article published on October 18 in El País.
Even though he always applied himself to “sapere aude” and was admired for his intellectuality and his capacity for work, none of his friends remember the title of an open book because he made Barça’s game boring. Lluch was certainly also the most understood follower at the Camp Nou.
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