It was gathered that Barcelona landed at Tokyo’s Narita Airport
at 8.00am on Monday morning following a flight lasting precisely 13
hours and 16 minutes, according to the club’s official Twitter feed in
English. Hundreds of local fans were there to welcome the European champions at the airport and then at their Yokohama hotel, where Lionel Messi, Neymar, Luis Suarez and the rest of the Barça squad were scheduled to take a pre-breakfast nap to help them adjust to the eight-hour time gap between Spain and Japan.
The Barcelona delegation will make their FIFA Club World Cup Japan 2015 debut in Yokohama at 19:30 (local time) on Thursday, when they take on China’s Guangzhou Evergrande, who beat CF America 2-1 on Sunday.
Despite only getting in on Monday morning, they held a training
session in the Nippatsu Mitsuzawa Stadium in Yokohama that same evening.
As well as the throng of journalists in attendance, about 200 students
from a school that Barcelona opened in Tokyo were also invited to the
session by the club.
Before the team bus had even arrived at the stadium, Barcelona club officials and stadium staff in the ground were besieged by a mass of children asking where Lionel Messi was and whether he had arrived or not. As soon as the team came onto the pitch, the cheers from the children echoed in the night air.
When the training started, one young boy, eight-year-old Koshiro Yamashita, who is learning football at Barcelona’s FCB Escola in Katsushika in Tokyo, jumped up and started to sing a song in fluent Catalan. It was El Cant del Barça, the club’s official anthem. When he sang with a clear and pure voice, “We have a name that everyone knows”, the Barcelona officials and other people packed into the stadium responded in unison with “Barça! Barça! Barça!". Thanks to the voice of one schoolboy, Yokohama was suddenly enveloped with the sort of passionate togetherness that normally fills the Camp Nou.
Before the team bus had even arrived at the stadium, Barcelona club officials and stadium staff in the ground were besieged by a mass of children asking where Lionel Messi was and whether he had arrived or not. As soon as the team came onto the pitch, the cheers from the children echoed in the night air.
When the training started, one young boy, eight-year-old Koshiro Yamashita, who is learning football at Barcelona’s FCB Escola in Katsushika in Tokyo, jumped up and started to sing a song in fluent Catalan. It was El Cant del Barça, the club’s official anthem. When he sang with a clear and pure voice, “We have a name that everyone knows”, the Barcelona officials and other people packed into the stadium responded in unison with “Barça! Barça! Barça!". Thanks to the voice of one schoolboy, Yokohama was suddenly enveloped with the sort of passionate togetherness that normally fills the Camp Nou.
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