Educate in times of the World

Sometimes I look at my little son and he looks at me wondering what I'm thinking and I'm thinking about how he will see the world, the world and me, that little seven-year-old in front of me.

"What?" he asks.

—That I love you very much, I tell him, and he makes a gesture with his little hand, like that, as if for me to leave him alone.

But it's true that I love him so much that from now on my whole reality is determined by his presence, his and his brother's.

My ideas, my way of understanding success in life, what I think, everything has been affected by the arrival of these two satellites that have been with me for some time now.

Also, of course, my facet as a soccer fan.

When I was his age, that of the little one, the 82 World Cup happened, the first one I remember.

Oh, that fascinated me.

I am not exaggerating if I say that those days I discovered the world.

I learned that it was a complex and plural place, inhabited by people of different cultures and colors, not just the jersey, and ways of understanding life and the ball.

I learned everything the way important things are learned: by living them.

That summer I attended an England-France match in San Mamés in which I supported the Gauls, despite wearing on the street the replica of the British Admiral shirt with the logo of the Bilbao Savings Bank.

That summer they gave me a soccer encyclopedia that I read hundreds of times until I memorized almost all the names that appeared in it and later recited exotic and beautiful names like poems during the television broadcasts: Littbarski, Gentile, Smolarek, Keegan, Edevaldo.

That summer I celebrated lots of goals, I dreamed of many more and I cried, I cried several times, the last time when Hrubesch scored the penalty that classified Germany for the final, against the bad guys, against Schumacher's men.

Boy did I cry that night.

All that came to me filtered by the words of my father, whom every day of the championship I burned with questions and whose word I understood as definitive.

Through him began my admiration for Sócrates, Tigana and Osvaldo Ardiles, who has accompanied me all my life.

When this 2022 World Cup arrived almost without warning, in the middle of the winter routine, I wondered if seeing it at home, together with my children, would make me an accomplice in this unfortunate FIFA of ours and its dealings with economic power.

I have some good friends, very soccer fans, who are practicing a strong television boycott.

But I couldn't do that to my little ones.

Four years for an adult is a considerable time, but for a child it is half a lifetime.

I couldn't leave them without football.

Instead, I am trying to use the event to speak to you about the world we live in, about cultural richness and injustices, about wonderful diversity, and about those who threaten it because they long for a homogeneous, ugly, gray world without rainbows.

With the eldest I think I have achieved it, that soccer serves for their educational process.

The latest proof of this: the other day he was able to choose the number he wanted for the jersey of the team he plays with and he opted for the 18 of Óscar de Marcos and Carlos Gurpegui.

With the little one I am on the way.

These days it makes me wonder, like 40 years ago I did with my father.

Why do I prefer the smaller teams to win, those that say nothing to almost no one?

Why do I hate Mbappé so much if he's great?

Why am I rooting for Ghana?

Our conversations are about football, but through them I try to explain to him the way I understand the way we should be in this world.

I try, in short, to educate him.

I truly believe that in this process football is a great ally and the World Cup, this World Cup as well, is an opportunity.

I hope I'm not wrong.

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