All the waves of the sea owe their beauty to the retreat of those that preceded them.. Andre Gide.
Pedro Miguel Etxenike, Prince of Asturias Prize for Scientific Research in 1998, is, in addition to being a distinguished scientist, a man of deep and broad wisdom, one of those who would seem to have been created following Leonardo’s guidelines. A few years ago I heard the phrase that is the opening of this article and I kept it to myself because if there is something in football it is waves and waves, and such a constructive vision of the old waves in retreat seemed to me a luminous look at all those succession issues that, from time to time, usually accompany us in football debates.
In which club have they not considered one day or another what we will do when It would be worth it for who stops and leaves the goal at 0, but that Z…).
If there is one club, but not only, where all this is visible, that is FC Barcelona. If you want proof of this, you can reread the Deco presentation press conference in which many of the issues were linked to European sporting achievements compared to those achieved many years ago. Or recurring questions about cracks that would make you forget supercracksto the point that Deco even had to respond to Messi’s non-arrival, a situation that is understood to mean that if he was presented this past Wednesday it should not correspond to his time of responsibility.
There were many and varied waves from the past that were colliding with Deco’s present vision. But, call me strange again, I was missing something that until not so long ago was a watchword in what is called Barça DNA and which is none other than the reference to the idea of the game that gave so much and differentiated the team. But on Wednesday he tiptoed, almost as if no one wanted to lift that hare, the one that referred to the fact that the question is not only winning, but how Barça football wants to achieve that victory. What was previously defined as not only what matters but also how.
Paraphrasing Etxenike, it would be said that the beauty of what Barça today should contribute to the resolution of the dilemma of how games are won, should be developed from that wonderful and indescribable wave on which the culés, and with them football Spanish, surfed and dominated world football, more or less, a decade ago.
If you want another football example for André Gide’s maxim that Etxenike wisely picked up, we can observe the looks, comparisons and comments about Lamine Yamal, that challenging and electric winger who in less than five games has made us forget Dembélé, that player who was even seen as a possible Ballon d’Or. It turns out, however, that Lamine has become essential on the right wing of Xavi’s attack and has arrived at the Spanish team with every intention of staying for many, many, many years. A clear case of those that Albert Valentín would define as those who prefer to ask for forgiveness than permission.
The point is that this magnificent wave of Lamine must grow and develop in its own beauty, being compared every second to that majestic and unique one of Leo Messi. The point would be that paying attention to Etxenike, you always have to listen to the wise, Yamal will grow with the example and contrast of an almost unique myth in football of all time like Leo. And his beauty will be extraordinary, it already is, as long as we let him be himself and let him rely on the myth of Messi to grow, learn, make mistakes and continue growing.
No, it’s not two waves that collide to see who is stronger; They are two waves (the one that is already receding but is still powerful and the one that is arriving with the intention of occupying everything) that sustain each other to be beautiful and magnificent. And the sum, if we let them and they each accept their part of the challenge, will be majestic.
You can follow EL PAÍS Deportes in Facebook y Twitterclick here to receive our weekly newsletter.
Subscribe to continue reading
Read without limits
