Football, like VAR, is ill-suited to a fixed image. A team is a living organism and what we see today will change a thousand times throughout the season depending on the mood, fatigue, injuries, form… Madrid knows this well, and they were finally able to sign Mbappé, a thoroughbred who puts on a show and wins games. But it took just one month for Ancelotti to realise that a big signing does not solve problems, but rather changes them. With sheer weight, Mbappé is more than Kroos, but sometimes a simple screw changes more things than a turbo engine. Without Kroos, Madrid lost patience, judgement, precision. Order.
Since there is no other Kroos, a new balance has to be found (four midfielders?), which not only affects the coach but also the entire team. The result is still not a problem. Each game seems like a different movie with a plot that is still weak, but we know the ending. The team can, as against Stuttgart, split in half and be dominated for a good part of the game, but end up winning by a comfortable score.
The fans, also a living organism, celebrate in the same way, in the Madrid way, with moments of passivity, others of indignation, with the sporadic madness of a comeback and always with the peace of mind of knowing that in the end the good guys win. They come from years of great harvests. The last nine finals have been won, wonderful matches have been played, miracles have been worked. Rather than worrying about the ego of the players, always under suspicion because we think they are spoiled children, we must look at the fans to see what sociological effect so much triumph is having on them. I thought about it on the way back from London, after the fifteenth. The captain of the plane opened the microphone and shouted three times “Hala Madrid!”, but not even Tato answered.
Surely because being a fan is a sacrifice and they felt exhausted, but above all because they are used to it. Badly accustomed. That was a symptom. In the thunderous Bernabéu, famous for comebacks, it is quite common for silence to fall. It is not new. Puskas was once asked the question: “Why don’t Real Madrid fans shout?”, and he answered with a customary genius (if that exists): “Because their mouths are full.” Of course, a surfeit of triumphs, titles, championships. That attitude is in the nature of any fan, a creature of habit. But the uniqueness of Real Madrid fans is that rather than asking, they demand. Seen from the locker room, it is the hateful part of the myth and, nevertheless, the most valuable because rather than inviting, they force. As things stand, as I have already said on occasion, Real Madrid players run in self-defense.
A good friend whom I have, more than as a Real Madrid fan, as a madridologistHe told me: “We Real Madrid fans don’t like footballers giving us lessons.” He was saying this with regard to Vinicius and his taste for talking to the fans. My friend doesn’t like that attitude, it makes him uncomfortable, as if dialogue were the same as the employee with his owners. I’m not so sure because I see that when Vinicius incites, people get excited. Maybe tourism is changing the profile of the fans. In any case, it’s not the first time that Real Madrid fans have disconcerted me.
Like bad bosses, the fans take over the triumphs and assign the failures to the players, who are ultimately their employees, for whom we pay them. As a member, I am taking part in the protest because I know that it gives good results. You’ve seen it.
