I left the woman I loved to celebrate the night Barcelona lost. Yes, you read that right. I celebrated Barcelona’s elimination from the UEFA Champions League semi-final. Not because I’m a fake fan. Not because I hate the team. But because for the first time in nearly a decade, I felt free.
Let me explain. My name is Adjoa, I’m 27, Ghanaian, a football writer based in Spain, and a Barcelona fan since I was ten. And I don’t mean casual fan. I don’t mean I watched the occasional Clasico or posted Messi edits on TikTok. I mean I lived and breathed this club.
My first tears over a loss came during the 2010 draw against Rubin Kazan. I skipped school to watch Xavi documentaries. I wore the same 2015 jersey like a second skin during exam weeks for good luck. I believed in the club’s philosophy — positional play, La Masia, humility, elegance, and excellence. I believed we weren’t just chasing trophies; we were preserving an ideal. That belief, once beautiful, became a burden. A prison, even. When Messi left, something cracked.
Not just in the club, but in me. Then came humiliation after humiliation. Roma. Liverpool. Bayern. Frankfurt. PSG. Each collapse didn’t just sting — it shattered. But I kept believing. Kept defending Xavi when others mocked. Kept insisting the DNA was real. Kept hurting. By the time we reached the 2025 semi-final against Inter Milan, my soul had been through a battlefield of false dawns and dashed hopes. But still, I hoped. Still, I stayed. The first leg ended 2-2 in Milan. I held my breath. In the second leg at the Montjuïc, we started strong. Raphinha scored.
The stadium roared. But then came disaster — Lautaro, Çalhanoğlu, Barella. Inter scored three, one after the other. 4-3 on the night. 6-5 on aggregate. The final whistle blew. And I… smiled. Not because I was happy to lose. But because I realized I wasn’t angry. I wasn’t broken. I was relieved. It was over. The illusion was done. And something inside me felt light — liberated. I looked over at her — Aisha, my girlfriend of three years. She sat there, quiet, confused, watching me closely. Her brows furrowed when I started to laugh. Not mocking laughter.
Not cynical laughter. But the kind of laughter that comes when you finally drop the weight you’ve carried for too long. She said, “You’re laughing? You just lost.” And I said, “No, I just won.” She didn’t get it. How could she? She wasn’t a football fan. She supported me, not the sport. She tolerated my madness during game nights.
She made me ginger tea when I sulked after defeats. But she never understood that Barcelona wasn’t a hobby for me. It was my mirror.
My compass. My history and hope. And tonight, I saw clearly that the club wasn’t healing — and neither was I. The defeat wasn’t a failure. It was a full stop. The end of pretending. I told her I needed to go out. Needed to find other fans. To dance in the catharsis of collapse. She said, “Adjoa, are you seriously leaving right now? Right after we lose?” I said, “Yes.” She said, “
You’re choosing football over us?” And I didn’t answer right away. Because in truth, I wasn’t choosing football. I was choosing me. The version of me I had ignored for so long — the one who had buried joy under blind loyalty, who had given everything to a club that wasn’t even sure what it stood for anymore. I kissed her cheek.
“I need to go,” I whispered. “Please understand.” I knew she didn’t. I left anyway. Outside, the streets of Barcelona were a strange mosaic of grief, anger, and laughter. But then I saw them — the fans like me. Wearing scarves not as flags of pride but as symbols of survival.
People who had stayed through all the darkness and now found a strange, beautiful freedom in this latest defeat. There was a group of us outside a tapas bar, lighting sparklers, singing sarcastic chants, hugging strangers. Someone shouted, “We’re free from the illusion!” and everyone cheered. Another yelled, “Rebuild from rubble, not from rot!” I stood in the middle of it all and cried. Not because we lost. But because I felt something I hadn’t felt in years: hope. Real hope. Not manufactured, not PR-spun. Not the hope of a fan clinging to faded memories. But the hope of a person who had let go — finally — of the myth.
That night, I met strangers who became family. A woman in her 40s who had flown from Nigeria just to watch the match live. A Spanish teenager who had written a poem titled, “Losing Like Barça.” A man with tears in his beard who whispered, “Now we can truly rebuild.” We weren’t celebrating defeat.
We were celebrating honesty. I came home at 3:45 a.m. The lights were off. Her bags were gone. There was a note on the bed: You left me for a loss. I don’t know how to forgive that. I love you, but I’m tired of competing with something I’ll never understand. Goodbye. I sat on the floor and read that note five times. She was right. She didn’t deserve that moment. She didn’t deserve to be left behind in the name of a club. But I didn’t regret going.
Because sometimes, in choosing yourself, you lose others. And sometimes, losing them hurts. But it’s a pain that births clarity. I won’t pretend I didn’t love her. I did. Deeply. But I loved a version of her who accepted a version of me that didn’t exist anymore. And maybe that’s the cost of growth. Of healing. Of stepping out of illusions.
I still support Barça. I still wear the badge. But now, it’s not a symbol of obsession. It’s a reminder. Of everything I’ve lived through. Of who I used to be. And of the night I walked away from the person I loved most — not because I stopped loving her, but because I finally remembered how to love myself. So yes, I left my girlfriend to jubilate our Champions League elimination.
Yes, I know how that sounds. And no, I don’t regret it. Because that night, I didn’t just watch Barcelona lose. I watched myself win. THE END Would you like a spoken word version of this or a
