Earthquake on the Madrid planet due to a typically culephobic referee decision. Barça and Madrid dispute the monopoly of referee victimhood. The spectacle is grotesque: they share accusations that turn them into corrupt children of Negreira-Leninism or henchmen of sociological gurucetism. It is a phenomenon as old as football. But the VAR and the opportunistic interpretation of the sensationalism of many media exacerbates it to a level of self-destructive delirium that should be – will not be – unsustainable.
Let us delirious, then, and recover that cynical reply from Groucho Marx: “We have paid the referee to declare you the winner. We have paid your opponent to let you win. The rest is up to you". Or the wisdom of Bill Shankly: “The problem with referees is that they know the rules but not the game.” The referee error (that of Mestalla or any other) has a disproportionate dramatic dimension in relation to other football errors. Yesterday, in Manchester, Håland missed an incredible goal, but today we talk about it as an extravagance that will not overshadow his resume, while Gil Manzano's decision will haunt him (and his descendants) until death.
If the referees knew the game, Madrid's goal would probably have gone up on the scoreboard and would have contradicted the visionary projection of Franz Beckenbauer, who imagined a football that no longer needed referees. A football subjected to the infallible and technological precision of drones. In Spain that will never work: if the only judges were robots or drones, we would find a way to discredit them and accuse them of being perverse, corrupt or terrorists.
Can you tell that I'm making time (and space) to not have to comment on the game against Athletic? Playing on foot against a team with a hangover does not seem like the most ambitious tactic for a team that is playing for the League (and a good part of its future). And if, in addition, your midfield suffers two injuries –De Jong, Pedri– in the first half that complete the dismantling that Gavi inaugurated, the situation worsens. We can bet on the doom card, of course. Romain Rolland, Nobel Prize winner and conspicuous solitary, said that fate is the excuse for souls without will.
The commemoration of the third year of Joan Laporta's return to the presidency could have served as a calendar booster. Laporta, in fact, is the example of a soul with great surpluses of will but without the resources to transform it into minimally tangible facts. Unfortunately, the evidence refutes the possible green shoots and places us in the sadly common area of uncertainty and helplessness. What do we play? The only tactic is desperation understood as a continued effort to change things based on will (without a soul). Minutes pass. The team transmits enormous discomfort, with or without the ball. Let's not talk about the discomfort of the fans.
