The story of Messi and Barça is still waiting for an end. The rude, boorish screenwriter who wrote what happened a year ago is of no use to us. Fiction does not pursue the truth but the plausible. And losing Messi forever for not being able to pay him did not seem plausible at the time. Nor does it seem so a year later.
The return of Messi to Barça will not be profitable or, probably, successful, but for a club built on a bolero sentimentality if not a soap opera, it is necessary for us. We cannot support a resurrection with the sin of a separation against nature. We must redirect the narrative towards the stories that made us who we are. Fire the coarse scriptwriter and hire the cheesy, romantic movie writer in us. We want to see Messi come out of that changing room tunnel with the Barça shirt, with the 10 and preceded by Thiago, in the Froilán plan of the family. We love stories that end well. And we can accept that Shakira and Piqué do not reconcile, but Messi has to have another ending and we know what it is.
To return to. We will love you. He will score a free kick, the shield will be kissed and Barça will be Barça again because giving Messi to a millionaire was like making an Elton John ballad out of surrogacy.
That lovers love each other separate by common sense, of the opportunity or need for good business, works in the world of finance, but not in that of kid’s fantasies, and on these loyalties to clubs like Barça are built. PSG will never do anything in any competition with a face and eyes because it is a team without a soul, and it has no soul because it has no childhood, no working class and no self-esteem.
Despite the fact that we have done everything possible to turn high-competition sport into a supermarket for our wi-fi, one does not stick his leg for money. He puts it for his teammates, for the kid he was, for the one who comes to cheer him on or shout in the stands, for the shirt, for the glory, for his desire to win and also for the story you write with what you live. For money you walk through the fields or at night. For money you are Neymar, but no kid wants to be Neymar. Not even Neymar would want to be Neymar. For money Neymar has nowhere to return. Messi, yes.
We are the importance that our story instills in us. How we see ourselves when we look in the mirror. Of what we did and what we could do, we did not do. And if we talk about a club that you love over the years, their story is yours.
A past that you explain to your children and that you share with your friends. What did your parents and grandparents tell you? Exaggerated epic memories, photo albums of plays and players, of newcomers, of soccer players who gave you joy, who gave you a dose of redemption, of class and city rage, of hope that perhaps life was stealing from you in those moments. Stories in which you feel good as a member of a community, that show the desire to build something beautiful and unalterable, something that cannot be bought or sold.
Barça didn’t misbehave with Messi or Messi with Barça, but as that one sang, that’s no way to say goodbye. We have to be wrong, let him come back and remember the story of a boy with growth problems, with a signature on a paper napkin, the best player in the world that we had since he was a child until he could no longer compete at his best level. That is the history. There is no other, Without her, we will wander aimlessly until we are bought, cheap and broken, by any millionaire.
