Barcelona’s visit to play Red Bulls a rare sports spectacle

Daniel Edelman remembers it so clearly.

His first visit to FC Barcelona’s famed Camp Nou in 2016 on a tour of Spain with a US Club Soccer all-star team … the way the fans’ chants echoed through the stadium … the greats of the sport astride the pitch … Lionel Messi standing over a free kick just outside the 18-yard box — and bending it into the top corner of the goal. “Unreal,” Edelman says now. “So special.”

Edelman is about to see the global headliners from Barcelona again, only this time it’s as an opponent. And they’re coming onto his team’s home turf.

On Saturday night, the Red Bulls will host Barcelona at Red Bull Arena in Harrison, New Jersey, a Daniel-versus-Goliath friendly that doubles as an international showcase for the local MLS team and a rare chance for New York soccer fans to see one of the sport’s true superpowers — plus a handful of its superstars — in person.

“I have these memories of what Barcelona was like back then and seeing them in person, and now that we get to go up against them, it’s going to be so cool,” Edelman, a 19-year-old midfielder and New Jersey native, told Sports+ this week. “And of course we’re going to approach it like every game, but there’s definitely some added emotion and passion with this team coming to our arena.”

Analogies for the matchup fail here. North America has the major league of everything else; New York has the more storied franchise in almost every pro sports encounter. This is the Yankees barnstorming against the Canberra Cavalry, except Australia’s capital is transformed into the most important city in the world. This is Lewis Hamilton racing the boys from Formula 4 US Championship across the George Washington Bridge.

The matchmaking required some schedule gymnastics. Red Bulls general manager Marc de Grandpré says the team was approached about three months ago by Barcelona’s liaisons.

“It was a no-brainer for us to bring them in,” de Grandpré told Sports+. “Capping off their North American tour in New York was their ultimate goal, and we made it happen.”

He said Barcelona wanted to play in a soccer-specific stadium with natural grass, and Red Bull Arena is, in his words, “the crown jewel of a soccer-specific stadium in North America.” The Red Bulls agreed with the Colorado Rapids to move their scheduled Saturday MLS game to Tuesday, and Hola, Barca. The Red Bulls say the 7 p.m. match — which was included in season ticket packages — is sold out; a Tuesday afternoon scan of StubHub showed a minimum get-in price of $325. Come for the goal-scoring firepower, stay for the post-match fireworks. (The match will be available to watch on MSG Networks and via Red Bull TV.)

It’s part of a busy 10 days for the Red Bulls, who are third in the Eastern Conference with 36 points (10-6-6) and a plus-9 goal differential. On Sunday, they won, 4-3, in Austin, Texas. On Wednesday night, they travel to face Orlando City in the semifinals of the U.S. Open Cup.

Barcelona is a team in turmoil and transition, by their lofty standards. They were protagonists in the embarrassing collapse of the European Super League last year. Their books are in the horror genre; reports place the club’s debt north of $1 billion, with a B. They were eliminated in the group stage of last season’s Champions League, which was won by archrival Real Madrid, who also lapped them in Spain’s La Liga. Xavi, a legend at the club as a player, took over as manager in midseason. Messi is missed. But they have a cohort of tantalizing teenagers (Pedri, Ansu Fati, Gavi) and signed veteran all-world striker Robert Lewandowski in recent weeks — he could make just his second Barcelona appearance on Saturday.

“It’s a top-five most recognizable soccer brand around the globe, and for us to be playing them at Red Bull Arena, it’s a win-win for everyone,” de Grandpré said. “So we’re just honored to have them there, and we’re going to give them a great experience and hopefully a great match.”

Give them a match, you say? Barcelona boat-raced Inter Miami, 6-0, earlier in the tour. Funny thing, though: The last time the Red Bulls had a visitor of this caliber, in 2015, they beat Chelsea, 4-2, with the go-ahead goal supplied by then-16-year-old Tyler Adams, now a star on the World Cup-bound United States men’s national team.

“You see Barcelona on the schedule, and of course I’m going to be like, ‘Wow, it’s going to be fun,’” said Edelman, who earlier this summer captained the U.S. under-20 team that secured the country’s berth in the 2024 Olympics tournament. “It will be something I’ll always remember … I mean, I’ve been watching them on TV, every Clasico game, just their style of play, if we can somehow press them, win the ball and get some goals against them, that would be something.”

Today’s back page

Seen this movie before

On the same red carpet Tuesday night. In the same green jersey next season?

Sure, Jayson Tatum hit B-I-N on the bingo card of pat answers when pressed by The Post about recent reports his Celtics have made a Jaylen Brown-fronted offer to acquire disgruntled Nets superstar Kevin Durant: versions of “I don’t make the decisions” and “I love our team” and “I don’t believe everything on TV.”

But Tatum was there in the first place! In Midtown, on a sweltering summer night, when he could be anywhere else in the world, to lend his star power to the premiere of “NYC Point Gods,” a documentary produced by Durant’s company (Tatum is a St. Louis-born small forward, for the record). That’s interesting.

Pay day

Jackie Young was the WNBA’s No. 1 overall draft pick in 2019. She won a gold medal last summer with the United States 3×3 team. This year, in her fourth season with the Las Vegas Aces, she was a first-time All-Star and is a candidate for the league’s Most Improved Player award, averaging a career-high 16.3 points per game, shooting 43 percent from 3 (thanks, Becky Hammon) and taking the toughest perimeter defensive assignments.

According to Her Hoop Stats, Young is making $72,141.

On Tuesday night, she added roughly another half of that — a payout “in excess of $30,000,” per the league — as the prize to each player on the winning team in the WNBA’s second annual Commissioner’s Cup (presented by Coinbase, so you know, about that dough…). Young put up 18 and 6 as the Aces beat the host Chicago Sky, 93-83.

The Commissioner’s Cup format is reductive and without personality: The Aces and Sky qualified directly for the final based on their records in a seemingly random selection of regular-season in-conference games; in other words, because they’re good — they’re also atop the plain-old standings.

As Adam Silver makes noises about the NBA adding an in-season cup, the decision-makers will need to devise a format that sets it apart from the onslaught of 82 games and a different way to incentivize performance — you know how much is half of, like, Devin Booker’s yearly salary?

A new doubleheader in Queens?

A plan to build a soccer stadium for NYCFC at the Willets Point site near Citi Field is close to securing the mayor’s backing, according to reporting by The Post’s Josh Kosman and Bernadette Hogan.

Their story cites sources who say the 25,000-seat stadium will be privately funded and built in the next three years, which, OK! We’ll believe it when we see it — and don’t see it hiking our tax bills.

But have you ever enjoyed an afternoon of U.S. Open tennis and then walked across Roosevelt Avenue to catch a Mets game? It’s a delight. The notion of adding another sports venue to the cluster is appealing.

And it would bring a merciful end to the “Homeless FC” culture among NYCFC’s loyal fans, captured in this Jake Nisse story from last month, who have not had a stadium to call home.