The future is always bright
.
I don't want to take away the value of nostalgia, because an important part of the identity resides in it, which is where the game feeds on its greatest emotions.
But football is something that is always there ahead, where expectations and illusions live.
We have reached the point where the League will be parked for more than a month so as not to disturb the World Cup, the championship that every four years shakes the sociological foundations of this inexhaustible phenomenon called football.
The industry, advertising, hearts, everything is ready for what will be, once again, the most watched event in the history of mankind.
The World Cup is a culmination, something so long awaited that it seems like the end of the road.
But after this week's European draws something has happened that tells us about the power of time in football.
Suddenly,
the past cheapens
.
The before only serves to remember.
When he does not forget.
Football is later and, above all, it is now.
Florentino Pérez tells a beautiful story that gives us scientific certainty about the power of time in football.
I will put context.
We are in Lisbon and Real Madrid and Atlético are risking their lives for the Champions League final.
Atlético wins and time goes by.
In Madrid there is a terminal anguish.
The minute 92 arrives and there is a corner in favor.
We enter the magical part of the story: time stops.
Everything is suspended, except Sergio Ramos and Florentino Pérez.
Amidst the general immobility, Sergio slowly goes to the box to make a proposal to the president: “If he gives me 200 million, I'll score a goal”.
As the panorama is, it is not necessary to think much: "Done", answers Florentino.
We know the reality:
Luka Modric took the perfect corner and Sergio Ramos scored the most important goal in the last 50 years of the club's history.
A few months later, Sergio Ramos demanded 20 million to renew and, this is not fantasy, it seemed to Florentino that he exceeded the club's possibilities.
What had happened between one and another episode?
Any.
It had just been time.
See you later League and may God help you
.
At the moment my main philosopher is Carlo Ancelotti, who, from the same greeting, tells you the truth about football.
What what is the truth?
One that no one knows.
“Hello Carlo, congratulations for everything”, we tell him at each meeting.
And here comes the truth: “Thank you, we'll see in the next game”.
Football is, once again, something that is ahead looking innocent, but endowed with an unusual capacity for the unexpected, even the impossible.
How will this League be after the World Cup?
What is certain is that he will return without Gerard Piqué, who, precisely, took time;
without Emery and Lopetegui, who we give away to the Premier as if we had plenty of talent.
Everything else will be in the hands of time, we will not know what it will do with the physique and the confidence of the players, after Qatar passes sentence.
The World Cup will be a colossal interference, as always when the country puts on a soccer jersey.
And the Champions League will be waiting with its strong and seductive dishes in three months.
In between, the League will have to show that it is something more than a Madrid-Barça, if it doesn't want to be eaten by that older brother who keeps hanging around.
It's called Superliga and it looks a lot like this time.
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