Madrid needed to clear a match like this before Christmas, between bombs and slingshot plays, to postpone the umpteenth dissolution of the club of two thousand crises per minute, already with two international titles and the leadership on the brink of snow. Life takes many turns but fewer than we think, and sometimes it takes them only to stop at the same number.
Against Sevilla, Mbappé and Valverde scored two very similar goals with almost identical virtues: both can set up the cannon with hardly any space, without great leg movement; More than kicking, they seem to press a button. The Frenchman’s great goal had more merit: a still ball at his side, a monstrous turn of foot with his body half lying down. He didn’t even need to place the ball: the whiplash was lethal even for the spectator, who was barely left in the wake of the trajectory. Valverde, for his part, completed a laboratory move that included the sharing of responsibilities in celebration, with the bench agitated by the success.
The very slow lengthening of the days officially began, and Madrid played the best minutes of the season. Without his best player, Vinicius suspended, but with the ball running from one side to the other as in a pinball crazed Lack made Madrid want to start moving their asses in the center of the field, start playing and dominate the games with the clairvoyance with which guys like Brahim, Bellingham and Ceballos dominate them (which today is essential).
There were at some point, especially with the game on track, solitary exercises of selfishness in the rival area. Few and inconsequential. Maybe it has to do (crazy theory, but Christmas Eve is approaching) with the trademark patent for goal celebrations. Everyone already has one. Rodrygo does something with his hand over his face, which is what I do when I dance to unreproducible songs two or three times a year. Mbappé crosses his arms like Nines from The one that is coming. Vini is rehearsing one in which he covers his eyes and shoots (no one has called him a provocateur yet: dancing, bad; opening fire on the audience, elegant). Brahim does gesture of “who knows” or “here I am” ironic that yesterday he almost forgot but Mbappé reminded him. And Bellingham we already know: the most iconic and imposing, behind Cristiano Ronaldo.
The thing is that this is going to get out of hand (Dani Olmo has registered with the Intellectual Property Office of the European Union his celebration of pointing at the watch on his wrist, so every time we want to know the time, we have to make him a bizum) and in each match everyone will want to show off their latest trend in celebration, let’s not even rule out charging for doing it. The problem will be solved when players start celebrating their assists, even celebrating them with more euphoria than goals. And pre-assistance, which I have already read the term. And so on until—forgive the attack of old age and hatefootballmodernism—turn the most popular team sport in the world into another unusual competition of very individual egos. Yes, I exaggerate. But what a nightmare now to endure the attacks of ingenuity of someone who scores a goal and cannot jump raising his arms, or run like a madman without knowing what to do, because it is not fashionable. Reacting like a child (no plans, spontaneous, absolute madness) is always in fashion.
