Yes, you can be happy for qualifying for the round of 16

Julián Álvarez and Enzo Fernández celebrate one of the goals against Poland, this Wednesday.JUAN MABROMATA (AFP)

You will not remember what is happening now, Gino, my son, but while you sleep and suffer from the gas that presses on your tummy and bothers you, Argentina has just qualified for the round of 16 of this World Cup after beat Poland and for having left us some lessons that I would like to share with you.

I already know: you have one month and 10 days to live and it doesn't matter to you.

I notice it when we yell whores at home and your sleep doesn't change or when you cry because of the blessed colic that makes us all suffer these days.

Don't worry, it's a stage and it's over, just as this team went through the first setback with Arabia to go from less to more and this afternoon to finally feel comfortable with their game.

It's going to happen to you, you'll see.

Football, Gino, is our excuse to be happy:

the tiny space that we choose to seclude ourselves to feel, with an open heart, in a world that sometimes, most of the time, forces you to keep emotions.

There, in this little hole with the ball, on television or on the field, playing or watching, we manage to smile even when everything is going down.

You won't remember this day, my son, but Argentina won with the football we like.

With a leading team, he chose the way to circulate the ball and the way to hurt the rival.

That he did not speculate

That he went to the front and looked in his toolbox, with patience and when the rival closed, the best options to reach the goal.

Lesson, then, son: there is no need to despair when the pressure is on.

You can seek enjoyment and have it as a compass when the road gets stuck.

I know, I know, you still don't understand what it feels like, but it sounds a bit like this sounding in your ears right now.

To the regret for the missed penalty by Messi, Gino, because missing a penalty is one of the deepest pains in football life.

It is an instant in which one walks through an abyss that, with the drama of professional football, has two destinations: heaven or hell, non-stop.

It may be that Messi, due to the weight of his own name, is saved from falling underground due to a mistake and today, just today, the final result of the game will soon make Szczęsny's save remain as an unpleasant memory.

Calm down, son, calm down.

Don't worry, Gino, mom and she'll tell you Messi the way he belongs.

But today I want to make it clear to you that football is a teaching manual and this victory against Poland allows us to write down some of them.

Goals are a concrete example.

Alexis Mac Allister and Julián Álvarez, those you didn't see, but who pushed the ball for us to shout at home, are part of the new generation of the national team.

The young blood of a team whose pillars are the most veteran, like Messi, like Di María, like Otamendi.

You are going to listen to people who criticize the youth with the argument that all past times were better.

And look today, this game at stadium 974 in Qatar, as an argument to answer, always, that tomorrow is better, than welcome, for example, to this light blue and white jersey, to Enzo Fernández and these kids who are playing their first World Cup, inside and outside the lime line.

Also welcome to this coaching staff that puts their bodies into that, what most fear in this game with the ball at their feet: taking risks.

Listen, son, listen to Scaloni when he says it's hard to make people understand that the sun rises tomorrow, win or lose.

Pay attention to him when in front of the world's journalists he points out that the important thing is how you did things or if you tried to do them as well as possible.

Stay with Acuña's delivery, the character of Dibu Martínez and his security in being able to tell the world that he works with a psychologist because, we already know, we are all a little afraid.

Stay with the emotion and hope that Messi emanates every time he touches a ball, because living is playing, and how nice it is to keep playing.

Stay with the certainty that the heart always goes forward,

And remember that you have to toughen up, yes, but without losing tenderness, as Pablo Aimar taught you these days, displaying tears in the middle of the game, after the death of his mother and with adrenaline on the surface.

You can be sensitive, son, don't let them convince you otherwise.

Therefore, you do what you want.

I slept peacefully every time Argentina plays and enjoy this smile that we have at home afterwards.

I know that you can be happy for qualifying for the round of 16.

Why?

Because it guarantees us to live with illusion for a handful more days.

With all that that implies.

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