“You want to see you again”, read the banner that Joan Laporta hung on a Madrid building 100 meters from the Bernabéu. It meant his victory by KO in the Barça elections, which were held five months later, in March 2021. He won by fast track, before starting the fight. That fabric destroyed any chance of success for the rest of the candidates. In real terms, the elections were a simple formality for Laporta. Real Madrid remained silent before what was interpreted as a spectacular challenged deep within his territory. He held it for the next two and a half years. Until yesterday.
Madrid will appear as an accusation in the case opened against Barça for the Enríquez Negreira case, after several weeks of silence, against the unanimous condemnation of the rest of the First and Second clubs. The close bond between the two battleships of Spanish football was staged once again, so notorious that the Laporta banner in Chamartín took on a new meaning. “You want to hug us”, he came to say. Lluís Carrasco, Laporta’s campaign manager, gave a hint on his Twitter: “Florentino Pérez was the first to call Laporta to congratulate him on the banner.”
In the disturbing period that Barça is going through, immersed in a crisis that threatens to devour it, Madrid has functioned as a kind traveling companion. Nothing has bothered this affectionate relationship and even less the Super League project, a dream not yet realized by Florentino Pérez who has the enthusiastic support of Barça, the penultimate Mohican of the plan. Juve remained, evaporated in the ether. He has enough with his troubles.
Never in the history of the two clubs has there been a more affectionate relationship, fostered by the brutal economic imbalance that separates them. Where Madrid is full of health, Barça is in a state of assisted breathing, lever goes, lever comes. Two institutions, perpetually at odds in the popular imagination, have recently maintained a bond that could only be defined as fraternal, with its own nuances in this kind of relationship. One has passed on the tutorial power of the older brother; the other, that of a subordinate in trouble. For convenience or necessity, or for both reasons, Madrid and Barça have remained united against UEFA in the case of the Super League and against Thebes in LaLiga. Not the slightest institutional noise in a League in which Barça has obtained a substantial advantage and two resounding victories: the Super Cup and the first leg in the Copa del Rey. Not a complaint to the successive levers and signings in the midst of the economic catastrophe.
Gone are the untimely times that presided over the best years of Barça and the fear that Madrid felt of losing its global leadership in football, years enshrined in another unforgettable banner, hung for four months from a Bernabéu rostrum: “Mou, your finger gives us points the way”, said that one. “Mourinho is the one who best defends the interests of Real Madrid,” Florentino replied to a complaining partner in an assembly.
Five European Cups later, Real Madrid feels stronger than ever and Barça has to deal with its state of institutional weakness, bleeding right now after the revelations of the Enríquez Negreira case, an episode of massive destruction that threatened Madrid’s reputation if he continued in his silence. He broke it yesterday. He will appear as an accuser in the process against the club that he has as an ally in the Super League. The hug is broken. Madrid lets go of Barça’s hand and leaves him alone in the storm.
