Surveys on the habits of young people show that it is difficult for them to spend ninety minutes watching a football match without doing anything else. Based on this idea, Gerard Piqué put his Kosmos team to work to invent a tournament based on football that was the most similar to a video game, counting on the participation of well-known streamers to give it publicity. The apotheosis of this competition, the final four of the Kings League, was held this Sunday in a packed Camp Nou.
El Barrio won over the Annihiladores, which was probably irrelevant. What is significant about this finale is that people were distracted by a show that lasted eight hours, in which a lot happened. Like the arrival of Piqué and the presidents of the finalist clubs by helicopter, the performances of rappers, colorful dances or fireworks. Like a home Super Bowl.
On Sunday, the FC Barcelona stadium was suddenly rejuvenated, the average age of the spectators plummeted. And Piqué managed to appear on the front pages of the press and have minutes on television news with his new toy. But if the video killed the radio star, this league will not charge football. A relevant fact: the most chanted was Messi's name to return to Barça, not to play football 7.
Kings League is fun, but lacks excitement. The feeling for some colors is not improvised. Another thing is that nowadays everything is instantaneous and we can't spend much time on anything without looking at our mobile. And the young generations do not enjoy a match, a landscape or a book without repeatedly turning to their smartphone. The ideal would be to change habits, but we prefer to adapt to this new anxiety.
In this life and in this intense (and bewildering) time we have to travel through, there is room for the Kings League and for football. The only thing that is clear is that the celebrations of this new competition must go to the show pages and not to the sports pages. In the Kings League people have a good time, in football you experience the passion. Di Stéfano said it: Scoring a goal is like making love.
