Neither nostalgia nor dreams, football is present
The last champion of Italy and the last champion of Spain faced each other at the Diego Armando Maradona stadium. Said like that, it sounds like an event before a match. But in football crises, we don’t even respect the champions. Naples is not a system in crisis, but rather crisis as a system. The city, the history of the club and even its president pay attention to it. The only thing that endures in the club is the cult of Maradona who, like Gardel singing, plays better every day. The history of Barça has another dimension. The team is not there because it is not capable of winning like Barça and neither knows nor wants to win like Madrid. There he is, halfway between desire and reality, between Xavi’s sensitivity and reality, between nostalgia and reality.
…And in reality, Christensen
Christensen, as a central defender, is a symbol of the economic and footballing difficulties of a club which knew perfection not so long ago. In Guardiola’s city (custodian of values), everyone is a midfielder, even the goalkeeper. This demonstrates the difficulty of playing the Barça way with a central midfielder. Christensen, wisely instructed by his limitations, either does not participate in the distribution, or, if the ball reaches him, he tries not to lose it. The exit is thus compromised. Even with several other players out of position, Barca’s superiority was evident from the first minute. Perhaps due to a lack of confidence, he lacked the teeth to make a difference on the scoreboard and was on the verge of resurrecting a dead man. Barcelona stays. A minor problem if every player returns to their place and Xavi stops chasing each other at every press conference.
Slate and ferocity
There are a thousand ways to play football and, within ethical limits, they are all flawless. At Inter-Atlético, there was courage, solidarity and generosity in front of a public fascinated by the epic. But until fatigue set in, it was like striking a cold iron. Or to be more romantic, a mating dance, but with the drawback that we all knew it wouldn’t happen. Two powerful architectures and individual duels to the death in a match that the players had planned from the locker room. The inscrutable game subject to strict control to mitigate risks. This tactical discipline takes away the players’ right to play and think. “Interesting game,” someone noted, which usually means the worst players are given more weight than the best.
Football, this dramatic spectacle
A ready-made game is completely counterintuitive. In a game like this, a star’s shopping list doesn’t include a sharp brake, a humiliating blowjob, or a stylish hat… So what keeps us mesmerized? The importance of tactics, which take over the game and make those in the know feel wiser. But what the fan likes is seeing the heroic and loyal effort of the players and what grips him is the expectation of the exceptional. That a calculation error, for example, produces a catastrophe that changes the meaning of the match and the draw. This is exactly what punished Atlético when, in the middle of the second half, they paid for their delay with a goal conceded. The return remains and, given what has been seen, as in Game of Thrones, it will be “a dark night that will harbor horrors”. Another, somewhat perverse way is that football fascinates us.
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