The seven days from PSG-Barça in the Parque de los Príncipes to Barça-PSG in Montjuïc have been the happiest of the year so far. I was as excited as a kid imagining not only that we were going to the semi-finals, but even that we were getting into the final against Guardiola’s City. That we were returning to Wembley for the third time, after having won two European Cups there. I couldn’t help that fantasy, like someone who fantasizes about that lottery number that they never touch or about the Scalextric that the Three Wise Men didn’t bring them that year either.
I was about to get flights to London for the weekend of the final. And if I didn’t it was because of superstition. Don’t buy them yet, maybe the glasses. It wasn’t necessary. I shared my enthusiasm and sent messages to WhatsApp groups that, read today, are the football version of the milkmaid’s story.
Of course, on Tuesday I went up to Montjuïc. In my diary, on the afternoon of April 16, the only thing I had written down was Barça-PSG. Nothing else. In fact, I had already canceled some trips on the days when the semis were going to be played, just in case. Don’t tell me that seen from perspective it doesn’t have a point of tenderness.
I met a friend in Plaza Espanya at 6 p.m., to enjoy the afternoon without rushing. We saw the 400 Frenchmen who were going up escorted by dozens of police officers to the stadium. A people whose chants suggest an atavistic hatred of Barça, which I don’t really know where it originates from. From the 6-1 comeback? And at the same time do they venerate the Barça coach of that night, signed this season? They must be modern football things.
We passed dozens of boys and girls on the escalators who were already coming down. They explained it to me. They do not have a ticket, but there are a couple or three hours before the game to set up a kind of secular procession that accompanies the team bus in its last meters. A welcoming ritual for the gladiators who will represent you in battle. That afternoon so many flares were lit that with the smoke there were those who mistook the Barça coach for that of PSG and threw objects at it. Disturbing mistake for an afternoon where everything is signs.
It also happened that on the way to the magic mountain I met a couple of friends whom I had not seen since the final in Berlin in 2015. We hugged each other, convinced that this was the unmistakable sign that this year we would meet again in London. All very scientific.
The atmosphere in Montjuïc was electric until Araújo’s expulsion. With so much singing we were unable to hear the anthem of Catalonia that was played over the public address system upon the arrival of the president of the Generalitat. A sign for Pere Aragonès?
Final. 1-4. Within a couple of hours, the house of cards painstakingly built since the victory in Paris crumbled. The descent from Montjuïc mountain was hard. Much silence and lowered heads. And some thoughts out loud: all that remains is for Madrid to pass tomorrow.
So it was. One more time. I no longer have the time or age to change teams. But I would understand if someone younger asked themselves: why am I not from Real Madrid? I would tell you that this is too simple a militancy. Winning always has to be great, but it’s not human. That life is full of defeats. Of disappointments. That the movies that succeed at the box office are effective, but not the best. That poetry does not have to be a lesser genre compared to prose. And the excitement of my last week, even losing, was a delight. I don’t even want to imagine the day we win again.
