Negreira will be 'present' at San Mames when Barca visit

Bilbao is not usually an easy place for Barça to go. San Mamés, one of the most intense stadiums in La Liga, welcomes the Blaugrana, forgetting the supposed sympathy between Basque and Catalan teams. Tonight, if possible, the atmosphere will be even hotter. The reason: the Negreira case. Xavi already knows that, for the rest of the season, his team will have to isolate themselves on the pitch from everything that happens off it.

In that sense, in addition to chants, Athletic fans are planning to welcome Barça in a special way. On Basque fans' forums, some banknotes have gone viral, circulating in pdf format and in three different formats: the 500-euro note with the face of former Athletic vice-president José María Enríquez Negreira, the 200-euro note with the face of the president of the Royal Spanish Football Federation, José Luis Rubiales, and the 100-euro note with the image of Barça president Joan Laporta on it.

It will be up to each of the fans who come to the stadium to decide whether or not to print these fake tickets, although the forums are encouraging them to do so. Barca will be playing to win the title in the last fourteen games and will need to escape from everything that surrounds the club in order to become champions. The challenge is huge, but Xavi's side are proving they are more than up to it. The prize is too big.