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2022-11-23T20:19:35.843Z


The Argentine writer Martín Caparrós and the Mexican Juan Villoro maintain a correspondence throughout the tournament and confirm that the ball also knows a lot about friendship


Lionel Messi passes the ball to Ali Albulayhi of Saudi Arabia. Rodrigo Jiménez (EFE)

Ball out:

Today I am sad, Your Excellency, and I want to tell you a story.

Yes, I know: our teams only made one point between the two, and we were screwed, but my sadness doesn't come from there.

The story is different.

Once upon a time there was a country whose kings and owners did as they were told and no one dared say a word.

There was someone, however, who tried it;

they persecuted him, threatened him, he ended up going into exile.

His name was Khashoggi and he took care of himself as much as he could, but one morning he confided: he wanted to get married –for the fourth time– and needed some papers, so he went to ask for them at the consulate of his country in Istanbul.

He never went out again.

Later it was learned that they had killed him right there and that, in order to secretly take him out in a couple of suitcases, they cut him into pieces.

The CIA said that he had done it on the orders of the crown prince, the one who almost already ruled that country.

That country was curious: the world's largest oil exporter, it was dominated by a royal dynasty imposed by their god and dedicated to spreading throughout the world the bloodiest law of their religion, the sharia, which provides for "adulterous" women to be stoned to death, that "blasphemers" or "witches" or drug addicts be beheaded, that petty thieves only have one hand cut off.

This March 12, for example, that country executed 81 men for varied and confusing accusations.

But even that barbarity pales in comparison to the 10,000 boys who have died since that country attacked its neighbor, Yemen, in 2015. Its army is among the most powerful in the world: its kings spend 10% of the budget on weapons and stuff. , and all the great democratic powers that manufacture violence are fighting to sell it to them.

That country is almost the size of Argentina and its 30 million inhabitants exploit some ten million immigrants;

women have very few rights – not long ago they were allowed to drive cars, for example – and there is no democracy or freedom of the press or speech or any of that nonsense.

Yes, Your Excellency, I imagine that you have already understood that this country is Saudi Arabia, the most brutal dictatorship in the world, which is not even defined as a dictatorship because it is simply the property of a blood mafia: the royal family.

(And, speaking of blood, don't think I bleed from the wound. Yes, yesterday they beat us 2 to 1. But the ways of the Lord are inscrutable, and when we thought we had fallen into the worst of misfortunes, everyone would laugh From us, it turned out that what we were doing was paving the way. Argentina is always at the forefront of the useless. Today your Germany did the same with Japan, so the "losing to the worst" model, inaugurated by a two-time world champion, was followed by a three-time champion – the other three-time champion never even made it to Qatar – and is still looking for followers.)

No, the problem is not that.

So what does all that history have to do with the World Cup?

Nothing, or almost nothing, if it weren't for the fact that Leo Messi, the Great Captain, has just signed a contract to be the "tourist ambassador" of Saudi Arabia, his global image.

The details of the contract are secret, of course;

they are supposed to pay you between 15 and 25 million dollars per year for several years.

(And Cristiano Ronaldo – this is humiliating – had turned down that offer.)

It hurts, doesn't it, Your Excellency?

Why the hell does a guy like Messi do those things?

He doesn't know, he doesn't care, he likes it?

If he says that he does not know, he is a fool: it costs nothing to find out – to find out what the country whose image you are going to promote to the whole world is like.

If he says he doesn't care he's a cynic;

if he doesn't say anything he is even more cynical.

And if he says he likes him, he's a scoundrel.

What do you like, money?

It's a lot of money.

There are many millions, but he already has enough for several generations.

So why the hell is he doing it?

Because he tempts himself and he can't stop?

Because money justifies everything?

Because he is stupid?

Why doesn't he care about all this I'm telling you?

Why doesn't he care?

It's hard, Your Excellency.

I don't know how I'm going to celebrate his goals, paid for by blood.

I'm going to try to forget him because I don't want his banal venality to ruin my championship;

maybe I'll even get it because surely I'm not better than him, just poorer and kicker.

In the meantime, while I heal, I'm going to feel Spanish for a few days.

And it is the axis that makes Spain play guardiolista: with that devious idea that if I have the ball the other does not have it and, therefore, cannot screw me.

True, it is not always easy to do so.

But the first condition, necessary but not sufficient, is to try.)

We have many threads left.

Another day we talked about VAR, which is a great topic: how Artificial Intelligence makes us stupid.

And it will be until tomorrow, when only Uruguay and Brazil debut.

I hope that, at the very least, you don't have anything good to say about the yellows – which, I suspect, are still very green.

Juan Villoro will respond this Thursday, November 24

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Source: elparis

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