in danger of objectivity

Kylian Mbappé celebrates France's second goal with Olivier Giroud. DYLAN MARTINEZ (REUTERS)

Dear Martin:

While your emotions run through the field, mine do the calisthenics of those who wait for an opportunity.

I envy the exhaustion you feel when you see yours.

I have lost the right to complain about mine!

Traditionally, the orphanhood of the Mexicans began in the fourth game;

now we don't even get to this stage.

“What to do?” the coach of the Soviets would say.

Since Brazil won the Cup in Mexico in 1970, our Plan B consists of supporting the canarinha.

“Green feeds on yellow”, wrote Carlos Pellicer.

The poet was referring to the colorful changes of nature, but perhaps he anticipated our fickle passion for T-shirts.

I like Brazil, but I don't see it as my team.

In fact, I have fallen into a questionable condition for the fan: impartiality.

Can football be just a show?

While you submit to a guerilla of nerves, I soak my heart in warm water.

I long for suffering, the supreme form of love in a country where there is nothing more romantic than singing "Today I want to celebrate my pain."

I speak not only for myself, but for the millions of fans without a cause.

With the initial whistle I assume the grim neutrality of an ombudsman.

But I am unable to maintain this position: I start celebrating Portugal's good touch and I end up enthusiastic about the substantial victory of South Korea.

I have fallen into objectivity danger!

He made his debut in the round of 16 with an easy analysis: Poland went to Qatar to exercise tedium.

Against France, he had flashes in the first half and in the last minutes, but he showed in the worst way that football is a team sport and infected the fearsome Lewandowski with apathy, who did nothing more showy in the World Cup than missing two penalties ( one of them repeated, fortunately).

For its part, France returned to show champion fiber.

Griezmann gave an imperial game, recovering balls all over the field and providing high trigonometry passes, Dembelé corrected his addiction to missing the last play, Giroud patrolled the zone where he can score with a rebound on the nose and Mbappé was a genius .

How to describe it?

If Romario and Ronaldo were dead, the enigma would have a complicated but more or less logical solution:

two Brazilian souls would have transmigrated into a single body.

As these retirees are still alive, the long-awaited paranormal explanation is difficult.

At 24 years old, Mbappé combines skill with power in an unprecedented way.

Ronaldo was the idol that decorated his adolescent room;

he absorbed the virtues of The Phenomenon and added the disconcerting grace of Romario, capable of feinting an opponent with his shoulder.

In previous letters we criticized the artificial justice of VAR.

Football improves because of the referee's mistakes, who receive our fury.

That martyr places the honor of his mother for consideration by the Global Village.

But there are clinical cases in which the whistler is compulsively wrong.

The Venezuelan Jesús Valenzuela did not charge Mbappé a clear penalty for an alleged previous misplacement, which his naked eye did not see and the VAR did not review.

Another controversial play occurred when Szczesny left the small area with all his consonants and collided with the Frenchman Varane;

the play was clean, but the goalkeeper did not get up and the referee stopped the shot, disallowing a later scissor goal from Giroud.

Every time a goalkeeper accidentally collides in the big area, should the action be suspended?

The third offense occurred in a drop in which Mbappé surpassed his marker;

he was heading alone towards the goalkeeper when he was pulled by the shirt.

Valenzuela saw nothing.

Human error is also a matter of dose.

VAR is as unpleasant as injections.

I'd rather it didn't exist, but since it's there, why wasn't it used in any of these cases?

France will play against England, who thrashed Senegal.

The Premier League is the British Museum in motion: a display of foreign treasures.

99 footballers from that league are in Qatar.

Among them, the English occupy the modest place that the druids occupy in the British.

They don't stand out much, but they draw the sword from the stone.

Unlike the eloquent France, England hides its threats.

It should be remembered that five o'clock tea perfected the art of poisoning and that rose bushes flourish so well in the novels of that land because there is a corpse under them.

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