The strongest herd always grazes in the greenest pasture. Getting it right and getting it wrong in great company doesn’t have an ounce of epicness. The one who consumes energy belongs to a minority. To save, it is enough to abandon difficult causes. Drop your arms and take in the color of the landscape. The most profitable thing is to join the placidity of what is more common. The most warming jacket is the woolen one of the crowd. Wow, it’s easier to be with Barça than with Espanyol.
It is true that the defender of tiny causes shows character by disdaining gregariousness. And that becomes strong in an individuality that, although less common, is sometimes accompanied by the success of what is different. But the most normal thing is for the shadow of suspicion and the suffocating breath of the majority to fall on him. And we will add that sometimes this is more than justified: isn’t the psychopath, after all, someone who swims against the current?
But let’s stay with the positive aspects of those we call rare. Mental strength to soldier on in exoticism and a lot of that word that colonizes self-help books: resilience. Which in understandable terms is nothing more than the ability to adapt to adversities and threats. More or less like being from Espanyol, wow.
The white-and-blue minority, 3.1% of Catalans, according to the Center for Opinion Studies (CEO), has one foot in the Second Division. It’s time to give them a soul massage. As long as they allow themselves to be caressed by a stranger. It’s not a joke. Servant, who understands football in the old way of the enemy or water, bravely watches them lose. But the enjoyment ends when the tragedy of relegation seems already possible. If this happens, you have to put on the brakes and dress – not literally – in the parakeets’ shirt.
And it is not commiseration, nor false charity, nor pity, pity, pity. We are not bad but not that good people either. It’s just that, as Giuliano da Empoli writes in The Wizard of the Kremlin, some civil wars have the advantage of requiring combat in the morning but allowing the return home at dinner time. And seen like this, who would want to give up the pleasure of facing the Spaniards twice a year without leaving home? That’s why last night, in criminal time for a league competition, I approached Cornellà to add myself as a loan to his fans.
3% is numerically not a big deal. 77% of Catalans define themselves as Barcelona supporters, which fits perfectly with the numbers of a one-party system, at least in the football field. But hey, they have what it takes, they’re ours and we miss them when they’re not there. We have a problem. It is called 3%. There is time until the end of the season to fix it. Let’s go, Spanish!
