This Saturday (local time), Barcelona will play at Camp Nou for the first time in more than 2 years since the stadium was renovated. Since May 2023, Barca fans have always been eager to return to Camp Nou's stands because the passion it brings is not available anywhere.
This time, when returning, Camp Nou is expected to welcome only less than 50% of the capacity, specifically 45,401 seats. The old Camp Nou stadium has a capacity of 98,000 seats. After being renovated, it will have a capacity of about 105,000 seats.
This return of Camp Nou is a great effort of Barcelona after many delays. At the end of the 2024-2025 season, Barca had set a target to return to Camp Nou at the beginning of the 2025-2026 season, and they also wanted to speed up the handover progress in January 2025 but were unsuccessful.
This time, Barcelona has submitted all the necessary documents on November 14 and has been given a second green light by the city council. In fact, Barca wanted to return to Camp Nou on November 29 in the match against Alaves but the progress was accelerated by 1 week. November 29 will coincide with the club's 126th anniversary, so Barca wants to postpone it by a week to prepare more carefully for actual logistics.
Speaking about the occasion of November 29, Barca even wanted to bring Camp Nou back to this time frame in 2024, coinciding with the 125th anniversary of the club's founding. However, the progress could not be kept up. Vice President of the team - Elena Fort once had ambitions for this progress but failed even though he could accept reopening the restaurant with about 50% of the seating capacity in the stands.
News and stories about Camp Nou have been of more interest this week after Lionel Messi arrived at the stadium and took a photo on his personal page on an un announced evening. Messi's photo received hundreds of thousands of emotions on Instagram and made Barca fans feel excited and wanted to quickly return to Camp Nou.
Bringing Camp Nou back soon will benefit President Joan Laporta himself. He plans to run for re-election early next year and this is the most appropriate time to campaign in the hallway, preparing for this important event. Last season, Barca won absolutely in the domestic arena and reached the Champions League semi-finals. That is a better result than expected.
Not only that, if Camp Nou soon returns with a new, more spacious appearance, this also contributes to making Laporta's image better in the eyes of shareholders. If we wait until the end of the 2025-2026 season to prepare for the re-election campaign, it could be too late as the team's performance does not know where to go.
In the upcoming 4 matches in all competitions, Barca will have 3 home matches in La Liga, in addition to the trip to England to face Chelsea. After more than 2 years of waiting, the Cules have finally been able to enjoy the atmosphere at the familiar Camp Nou roof.
