Mascot CAT makes his Estadi Olímpic debut

It's not every day that you get to celebrate your 125th birthday, and after Friday night's spectacular show at the Liceu opera house, the festivities switched to the Estadi Olimpic for the home fixture against UD Las Palmas.

CAT the cat

One of the biggest pre-game attractions was the chance to see the new mascot CAT make his Montjuïc debut. After being introduced the night before, the blaugrana feline leaped onto the field to the sound of Un Dia de Partit, one the most popular club songs, joined the players for the team photo and even got to take the honorary kick off!.

L'escut al pit

Another of the highlights of Friday's gala was the announcement of L'Escut al Pit as the winner of the anniversary song contest, which also sounded over the stadium PA in the build-up to the game.

But that wasn't the only tune we heard. We got to hear all of the different anthems that have played over the years, from the earliest melody that never had any words through to the world famous Tot al Camp tune that every Barça fan knows by heart.

Honouring origins

There was another curious touch. While Barça are now famed worldwide for the dark blue shorts, on this occasion they were white. And that's because that's the colour of the shorts that the very first Barça teams wore from 1899. What's more, rather than stripes, the shirt was in blaugrana halves, again honoring the very first colours that the team wore a century and a half ago.