To Argentina

Lionel Messi, carried by Agüero, carries the World Cup, after the final against France.CARL RECINE (REUTERS)

Party hug to Villoro:

He went to Argentina, Granjuán, to Argentina, my mother tells me from Argentina, and it is so clear: Argentina won it against Argentina, unable to win in any other way or determined to win only in this way.

This way, we know, is to get almost everything and squander it to have to get it again and squander it again and get it again – and, if anything, squander it again, to see if we can get it.

This way, we know, is to fight and suffer, as if there could be no construction but a miracle: melodrama and miracle.

You saw it as clearly as I did: for 80 minutes Argentina was the best team in the world without a doubt.

He had erased the previous champion so much that the game was already over and the French had still not kicked on goal.

Argentina, in that period, had enjoyed a late genius from their coach: he put Di Maria on the left wing to play super-Jordi-Alba and, receiving Messi's passes, he destroyed the French defense;

there came two almost easy goals.

And, in addition, his players won on the entire court.

It seemed like a matter of love: the Argentines wanted the ball, the French didn't;

the Argentines played it, the French played timidly.

And there was panic in their ranks and his coach made some changes so that the changed waited for him in the corner,

and Mbappé played so that his father would call Florentino urgently to see if Madrid wanted him for 327,468 euros, and it seemed that he and his family could jog for ten days without approaching the other goal.

Everything, then, was a continuum of pleasure and calm that turned the terrible tension of a world final into a foam and bubble bath.

Argentina played, dominated, flourished, could even score more goals –which they didn't do because, somehow, it didn't seem necessary.

Until some Argentine suddenly remembered everything that is said about Argentines and decided to exercise it.

He got bigger, he believed it: instead of breaking the advance of the opposing player hard, he left it, he lost it, and the play ended in a penalty.

And it was a goal and after two minutes another goal from Mbappé and everything they had done in that long period was worth nothing.

To Argentina, my mother tells me from Argentina.

It was the same thing they had done against the Dutch, which we already discussed, although everything can always improve: this afternoon, already in extra time, the Argentines went back to the top and lost that advantage again, and then it was the penalties and the victory and the Dibu and the hugs.

A world championship shouldn't be decided by penalties – but that's the way it was and now we're happy and champions.

Now, in an Arab field, on the screens of the planet, boys cry like never before: the winners cry.

They begin to realize, verse by verse, hug after hug, that they have just done something that puts them in a place where so few fit: that they are, in these times of meager heroism, the new heroes of the homeland.

And the most hero of all, moreover, was able to reassure the world: he no longer lacks anything,

Allow me, without sarcasm, to take refuge in a French proverb, with the forgiveness of the fallen:

, all's well that ends well.

This ends so much more than well: we are champions.

Some will think that this is better, more epic.

Silly me, I believe more in pleasure than in suffering.

But we have had the pleasure of seeing a president of France consoling a fallen star and of seeing and feeling the emotion of these boys and of believing, above all, that it was worth it.

It was the Argentine style in all its splendor: it was not enough to win a game at once, as everyone does;

you had to win it three, with both tie genitals.

But that has already happened, we won, we beat them;

I imagine, now, the street parties in my cities, also in Argentina, songs and dances, kisses and hugs, waterfalls of joy.

And I would like, for once, not to use football as a metaphor for anything.

We are champions, we are tremendous, we are the best.

To Argentina, of course, that's what we are.

PS: last night, in Buenos Aires, one of the best Argentine writers died, Marcelo Cohen – who also lived in Barcelona for many years.

You knew him;

he, I think, would have laughed a lot at these things.

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