Endrick, the last gardener | Soccer | Sports

Manolo Romero, former Real Madrid scout, took advantage of the Cadena SER microphones to question the real age of Endrick, the last white gardener. “I have always had the doubt if the age they say he is is correct, physically I see him too fit,” Romero suspected in The bar, a casual format that feeds and takes good advantage of this type of content. He did not provide any evidence because he did not make any accusations, he barely expressed a doubt. And anyone can, in any case, question Romero’s ability to calculate ages at a glance, which is de facto almost a superpower, like the ability to fly or turn water into wine.

This is the country of Ana Obregón, Jordi Hurtado and their mysteries. Ousmane Dembélé arrived here when he had just come of age – or so the documents attested – and a few weeks after landing at El Prat airport we found out that he spent his nights eating pizza and playing game. Fortnite, which are adolescent vices if they exist, although it is not entirely clear where we draw the end of that vital stage in today’s society: my generation, about to turn 46, must be there. Nor would Dembélé be the first to pretend to be someone older to enter a club, a common practice among younger music fans. house, nor the last to avoid all the alarm systems that the big clubs have used for decades to detect these supposed bastards.

Suspicions about the real age of athletes have been present since the business devoured a large part of the metaphorical virginity of the sport itself. Also since talent began to impose its tyranny over the most restrictive regulations regarding the minimum age required to be part of the professional circuits. These days the call of Lamine Yamal with the selection is the subject of debate. In short, it is about forcing him to choose, at barely 16 years old, whether he will defend the colors of Spain or those of Morocco for the rest of his life, a decision as important for his future as studying science, literature or, directly, leaving the institute and surrender to the reading of Harper Lee. “That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird,” warns us Atticus Finch, who never had the material of a sports journalist, nor a scout.

There does not seem to be any major concern in Concha Espina’s offices about the documentation provided by Endrick’s legal representatives, which is why they limit themselves to waiting, happy and confident, for the boy to turn 18 to bring him back from Brazil before some funny guy Name him a senator or give him one of those television awards for a lifetime, as has recently happened with Xuxa. It is a risky bet for several reasons, mainly economic and expectations, but false documentation or the first symptoms of osteoarthritis do not seem to be among them.

“It has happened other times, for example, with Falcao,” Manolo Romero closed his conclusions with a parallel that would excite even the most talented: one almost wishes it were all true. And if tradition indicates that the gardener should be tasted hiding his face under a linen cloth so as not to offend God, modernity concludes that it will be enough to close the retractable cover the day Endrick debuts at the new Bernabéu with God himself – or a very similar one—sitting in the box.

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