Messi: the unusual boy

My friend Jose Manuel says that Lukita is the name of a child who lives in Las Tablas, the third child of a family that did not dare so much with the first two and found the perfect window of opportunity the day the mother -I imagine her tall , with highlights and driving a Smart-announced that, after giving birth, she would become part of a Ciudadanos candidacy.

"It happens that, any autumn afternoon, Lukita goes down to the neighborhood to play a party with other children of his age and, of course, the ones from the neighborhood pull hard," says my friend with a mischievous smile on his face: it is his particular way of explain the victory of the Argentines over the Croats, of reality versus the story, of the god of soccer versus the umpteenth counterpoint of the season.

Croatia fought to the best of their ability, led by an essential Modric who will be a legend despite Messi's irredeemable detractors: the fine midfielder is not to blame for finding himself in such a historic mess, as if everything achieved was of no use because he was not the one to unseat King Flea from his Iron Throne.

We will have to wait for next Sunday's final, or for the second season of

, to find a stingy alternative that questions the Argentine's intransigence, that unparalleled tyranny that spanned two decades and will leave, in its wake, a countless trail of skeletons with insurmountable defenses.

"It's not you, it's me", he should pray the motto of his house.

It seems like yesterday when Asier del Horno kicked him along with the Stamford Bridge band, barbarism against barbarism, leaving a door open to hope for those who refused to recognize in him the updated reincarnation of Maradona.

Also in Argentina, where his career has gone from the majority denying the prodigy to pointing out his setbacks, small tragedies articulated as personal attacks by a sector of the press that found in his Spanish namesakes the perfect receiver to amplify his nonsense: how justify the unusual treatment he received here, without first convincing the public how much he was hated there?

"Among so much talent -Eto'o, Ronaldinho, Del Piero, Deco, Ibrahimovic, Iniesta, Vieira- I saw something unusual in that boy and I wanted to take him to Turin", Fabio Capello would admit in an interview for

magazine years after that presentation at the Gamper.

He remembered his first encounter with the Beast, still with his baby teeth and his hair falling over his face, as if he felt some need to boycott himself so as not to go off the charts at the first opportunity.

On Tuesday, when he stopped in front of Josko Gvardiol to take his pulse before certifying his death, an army of notable rebels resisted the idea that it was not so much Messi's genius as that quasi-perfect habitat that, around him, was had built in Barcelona.

Modern football, the one that we criticize so many times with absolute deservedness for the obvious, is also Messi walking through the meadow until he sees an ocean where there were only puddles.

Like in the song, remember?

A true karaoke classic, the last refuges of the most rancid denialism and to which, the day he least expects it, Lukita, the boy from Las Tablas, will come, ready to claim himself as the only true king of the dance floor: that is why journalism was invented , pop and traditional company dinners.

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