I look for in football, among other things, a bit of sanity, a certain counterweight to what we see with politicians like Putin, Trump, Truss, Bolsonaro or Puigdemont who each live in their parallel world. But not. Not even the most admired coach in the world has his feet on the ground. Pep Guardiola is crazy too.
Those who did not see the first part of Sunday's game between their Manchester City and Manchester United missed one of the most... well, I don't know... I suffer to find the adjective... most crushing, symphonic, brutal, devastating, or something , that I remember in my half century or more of obsession with sports that despite what another crazy man says, Florentino Pérez, consumes the passions of more people than any other planetary phenomenon, with the possible exception of sex.
City went into the break beating the old enemy by four goals to nil when it could have been six, a mistake that was corrected with two more in the second half.
Since I'm having a hard time finding the words to recount what I saw, I'll take the easy route of quoting the Times of London. “City are a laboratory for the perfection of the sport, a team that plays football with an unbeatable ballet of angles, runs and passing sequences… United were powerless against City's intergalactic brilliance.”
The massacre was not sung. In the previous month United had defeated Liverpool and the first in the Premier League, Arsenal. It showed signs of recovering the lost glories. Until Erling Håland and Phil Foden each scored two goals before the 44th minute and the section of the stadium where the United fans were was empty.
“We did well, but we can do better”, was Guardiola's verdict. "Many, many players made poor passes... We're just not good enough at the simple things."
But what the hell is wrong with you, Pep? How is it that you miss the opportunity to celebrate the beautiful game of your team and give yourself a bath of the fullest joy? How could your team have played better? Some team will have played just as well once, like your own Barça, or the Brazil that won the 1970 World Cup, or Di Stéfano's Real Madrid. But it can't be better. We are not perfect, we are human.
Let's go to the one who was president of the also brilliant but not so effective galactic, the whites of Real Madrid. A few hours before City's show against United, Florentino Pérez gave a speech before his subjects at an extraordinary assembly of his club. Refusing, like Putin or Trump, to accept that the war is lost, Pérez continued to defend his closed Super League project, with access only to the big clubs in Europe, as an antidote to what he calls "the disease" that football suffers. The example to follow, he insists, is that of sports in the United States, which, consistent with the dominant ethic of that country, rewards the rich and the poor to screw themselves.
“There are no excuses,” Pérez declared, “before soccer was leading and now it is widely surpassed by the sport of the United States. We are losing the global entertainment battle.”
Let's see, Florentine. Let's see. Didn't you know that Barça has more followers on the intercontinental social networks, not only than the Dallas Cowboys or the Miami Dolphins, but also all 32 teams in your blessed NFL? What the fuck are you telling me?
What Pérez does not want to admit, although he knows it well, is that both the enemy to beat and the example to follow is the Premier. As I pointed out here a couple of weeks ago, far from being sick, the English league is sweeping today as never before in terms of revenue and spectators. And because? Because they play better than in the Spanish League? It's not that. It's because the Premier is competitive, and it's competitive because it distributes revenue much more generously between small and big clubs. Last season Manchester City received 174 million euros for winning the title and Norwich City received 113 million for finishing last. Madrid received ten times more than bottom side Alavés.
Open your mind, Florentino. Be magnanimous, not petty. Look for the solution at home and not across the ocean. Put your feet on the ground, on Spanish soil.
