Jaume Vicens Vives defined the Catalans as brand men, good people, pact-minded types and citizens of faith. Joan Laporta has read the historian and knows that to lead a club like Barça, especially when the Minotaur (another key figure in his Notícia de Catalunya) threatens, the staff cling to the brand, bring out the best in themselves, seek agreements and is willing to believe everything. So Laporta knows how to guide the story of the club where it suits him like no one else. Or, to be more exact, down a path where he avoids criticism and, with a bit of luck, even wins easy applause.
Nobody like him knows the cyclothymic nature of Barcelona. In two years we have gone from "I fix Messi with a barbecue" to putting him out on the street because the club's economy could not afford it. From making us believe that Leo wanted to return to the team he loves and making the stands chant his name in the 10th minute, to admitting that he couldn't make him an offer if players weren't sold.
The thing about Messi and Laporta has become a tango. Do you remember the lyrics of Cambalache, which Julio Sousa sang and which Serrat recovered years later? "If one lives in imposture / and another toils in his ambition, / it doesn't matter if he is a priest, mattress maker, king of clubs / cheeky or stowaway". These two years of love and heartbreak have been a real swap. Messi gave some clues in Mundo Deportivo about his decision to go to Miami instead of coming to Barcelona: "Many lies have been told that bothered me", "my thing with Barça is a wound that has not stopped bleeding", "in I have actually spoken very little with Laporta, once or twice at the most”.
In Argentina there is a word that compromises little, synonymous with conversations with little foundation: milongas. Messi was illusion, nostalgia and a return to the past. But many people –because the Catalans are people of faith– believed it. The disconcerting thing is that the club continues to have the same wage bill as when Laporta entered. And the salaries of Griezmann, Couthino and also Piqué, Busquets and Alba, the best paid, have stopped being paid. Someone hasn't done their homework, someone has told us milongas.
