And come back, come back, come back

When I am asked what it feels like when you retire from football, I usually use a situation from my life to illustrate it.

Let's go back to July 24, 1992. The Olympic torch arrived in Barcelona after a tour around the world and announced the Barcelona 92 ​​Olympic Games, so longed for, so magnificent, as distant as unforgettable, and I had the honor of collecting the witness of his flame at the entrance to the Eixample district, at that time my neighbourhood.

And there I was, one day before we left for preseason, dressed entirely in white, no one thought it was anathema, with a magnificent torch, reviewing the instructions they had given me and thinking that, what a mess, between torch and torch, between flame and flame, in the transfer the eternal fire that came from Olympia was extinguished, when the shouts of the crowd let me know that the moment had arrived.

And among the human tide came a guy dressed like me, but with fire in his hand.

The transfer was perfect, the flame caught on my torch and I ran away, not too slow, not too fast, following the instructions, not a difficult matter when one thinks I was a goalkeeper.

I was ready to enjoy the moment.

Excited faces, shouts of encouragement, multiple applause, pure joy and sparks in the eyes of those closest to them when they saw that flame that meant that it was true and that the Games were going to be played in Barcelona.

As I approached the next reliever, I mentally reviewed the instructions for the transfer of flame and carefully, firmly, transferred the sacred legacy, winked at my successor and watched him leave in the midst of a cloud of light and joy.

And it was there, right there, maybe not a minute after being in the middle of all the attention, when I began to feel that no one was looking at me anymore, no one was applauding me, no one even knew who I was, dressed in a bizarre way at one in the morning and with a strange artifact in his hands.

I waited for someone from the organization to arrive to find out how the party was going, but everyone had left with the flame, with the spotlights, with the applause, with their emotions on fire.

I had no choice but to start walking calmly towards my house, praying that someone would open the door for me because everyone had come out to enjoy that historic night.

There is nothing more surreal than a relay without relief or a torch without flame, there is nothing that teaches more than that mass that jelly you and that five minutes later follows the new flame, the new light, the new star.

Luckily, on the walk I met my family, a miracle in those times without cell phones and without

.

With the torch lit and with them we approached home between anecdotes, jokes and pranks.

I was thinking about all that when, with surprise like you, like almost everyone, I learned that Gerard Piqué stopped playing football, got off the train at the station he had chosen and that of his own free will, or not so much, blew into the torch and put out the flame of his enormous sports career.

But as Piqué is as he is in the good and in the other, surely he is already chasing the next bearer of the flame to decide on the fate of his next relay, his next stage, the next fire that feeds him.

Just wish him that the winds are favorable to him... or he will take care of making them blow where he is most interested.

Except that there are many out there, Gerard, who also know how to blow.

And a lot.

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