Adama Traoré: ‘The first time you hear racist abuse, you can’t believe it’

In the buildup to Barcelona’s Europa League meeting with Napoli in February there was a team talk, just not about tactics this time. They informed their opponents for a start, and this was bigger, the players discussing it in the dressing room and agreeing they would try something new: they were going to take the knee. Six years since Colin Kaepernick had first done so, two after Premier League clubs followed suit, it was the first time a top-flight Spanish club kneeled. It was also the last, at least in the men’s game.

The idea came from a Barcelona player born right next to the Camp Nou who had spent the previous six years in England. On loan at Barcelona then, Adama Traoré has just finished training at Wolves now as he settles in front of the screen. It is the evening before the Premier League captains announced they would now take the knee only at specific fixtures, which doesn’t mean walking away. Here or there. “Taking the knee matters and it was good a Spanish team did it,” Traoré says. “It’s a way of explaining the need to fight.”

Explain is a word Traoré returns to often. Education, too. At heart, he says, it is about empathy. It is also about understanding and his experience is instructive, brought to the Camp Nou that night and to Common Goal’s anti-racist project now. Common Goal celebrates its fifth anniversary on Thursday and Traoré is joining its initiatives against discrimination that include training for club executives, fan activities and local community projects for integration. “For me, it’s about having the opportunity to explain, to find out why people think that way. And from there, act.”

That night there was applause from the Camp Nou but the gesture did not get repeated in Spain beyond a handful