How has Barça come to look like such a charmless, indolent and weak team? Count Galeazzo Ciano, chancellor of Italy and Mussolini’s son-in-law, is credited with a memorable phrase about defeats: “Victory has a hundred fathers, defeat none” (the man had an intuition, because he was shot ). But if Ciano had been at Barça, he might have said “victories have one father (Kubala, Cruyff, Messi) and defeats many”.
At the time of the shipwreck – even though we are in January – everyone has their own scale of responsibilities. On top of the podium, Joan Laporta, the former president who was not to be voted for again. Silver: Xavi Hernández, great footballer who joined one of the most demanding benches in the world without experience. And a bronze medal for the players, unless we take for granted that they are mere handfuls and, consequently, are exempt from criminal responsibility, as is the case with minors.
The controlled or tamed footballer – who is so abundant in this Barça without a captain Puyol – is a specimen of the 21st century. It has lost prominence in football in favor of coaches – and their vast staffs, with people dedicated only to kicking corners or leading the warm-up on the substitutes’ side –, sports directors and players’ agents. The more relevant they all have – and the presidents -, the less prominence is left for the footballer. We have tamed the beasts.
With the exception of one Messi – one in a million footballers – the players have gradually adjusted to the new distribution of responsibilities. For them, the benefit is obvious: when data goes wrong, they are no longer the first to be pointed out. Those infidels who were waiting for the exit of their vehicles from the stadium are spared, they are spared the whistles and the crucifixions in the middle of the match and they can wander in the journeys with that painful image of the headphones at the entrance of the hotels, oblivious to the dozens of fans – many, children – waiting and would settle for an affectionate greeting, a smile or the slightest gesture of thanks after waiting.
Ancelotti should be thanked for ordering his players to stop heel-striking in the final stretch of the walk (which is also humiliating). Perhaps it wasn’t necessary either because the tamed footballer tends to meekness. And not to rebel according to the old codes even if it was with some beating, we have come this far (apart from Fermín, the rest seemed to accept defeat with Christian resignation).
Perhaps the coaches and their tactics sneer too much, but they have the essentials: football belongs to the footballers.
