Your Santa Claus will be Messi

Lionel Messi, during the World Cup final in Qatar. Francisco Seco (AP)

Gino, wake up, we are world champions!

Wake up, son, as quickly as possible, we want to take you to the street.

To the corner even if it is so that the noises do not scare you.

Wake up that the suffering is over, that for a few days here, on this side of the world, we have guaranteed happiness.

Wake up that it's over, that we danced to France for 60 minutes, that we suffered like hell and they tied us, and that we ended up celebrating in the penalty shootout.

Wake up, Gino, Messi has reached the level of Maradona!

It's almost impossible to write this, but I'm going to try to leave you with some memories.

We're having the best week of our lives, son.

Argentina was in an ecstasy because soccer was a fuel of joy.

They happened, like a whirlpool,

a host of episodes that showed that with so many shared emotions we didn't want this week to ever end.

To give you an idea, a group of crazy people chose to sing to a grandmother and that became cabal, even though the woman was not a grandmother;

two people collided and immediately after they chose not to fight, but hugged each other, and in Bangladesh, a country in Southeast Asia, a little dot on the map 17 thousand kilometers from where we live (I repeat: 17 thousand kilometers away, another language, other customs), there is a rage for our selection.

We didn't want these days to end or, well, we really wanted it to end like this.

You already have a World Cup for yourself, the key to pride for life.

a group of crazy people chose to sing to a grandmother and that became cabal, even though the woman was not a grandmother;

two people collided and immediately after they chose not to fight, but hugged each other, and in Bangladesh, a country in Southeast Asia, a little dot on the map 17 thousand kilometers from where we live (I repeat: 17 thousand kilometers away, another language, other customs), there is a rage for our selection.

We didn't want these days to end or, well, we really wanted it to end like this.

You already have a World Cup for yourself, the key to pride for life.

a group of crazy people chose to sing to a grandmother and that became cabal, even though the woman was not a grandmother;

two people collided and immediately after they chose not to fight, but hugged each other, and in Bangladesh, a country in Southeast Asia, a little dot on the map 17 thousand kilometers from where we live (I repeat: 17 thousand kilometers away, another language, other customs), there is a rage for our selection.

We didn't want these days to end or, well, we really wanted it to end like this.

You already have a World Cup for yourself, the key to pride for life.

a dot on the map 17,000 kilometers from where we live (I repeat: 17,000 kilometers away, another language, other customs), there is a rage for our team.

We didn't want these days to end or, well, we really wanted it to end like this.

You already have a World Cup for yourself, the key to pride for life.

a dot on the map 17,000 kilometers from where we live (I repeat: 17,000 kilometers away, another language, other customs), there is a rage for our team.

We didn't want these days to end or, well, we really wanted it to end like this.

You already have a World Cup for yourself, the key to pride for life.

A few days ago your brother's mother showed me a way to summarize Argentina for you.

The explanation, she told us, is hidden in the tango

and it is, neither more nor less, almost a way of life: “First you have to know how to suffer, then love, then leave”.

She's going to happen to you, Gino: you're going to have a bad time because there's no chance to dribble the bad drinks, and those pains, those scars, will harden you.

Do not be alarmed, son, in the face of some anguish.

Face them, let yourself win sometimes, step back to clean and jerk and go.

I swear they happen, believe me.

And if not, look at this final against France that will be history.

You have no notion, I know, but after winning 2-0 with colorful football, touch, with elaborate plays against the defending champion, we began to suffer.

It was almost torture, son, but then I remembered the teaching of your brother's mother.

Know it, prepare yourself: here, we suffer, it is almost a law.

And it has been since the beginning of time.

It is an almost intrinsic characteristic, as if it were a mandatory tour.

And it does not apply only to soccer.

But we get away

The definition by penalties was on our side.

You have a few years left to be able to see Dibu Martínez and his saves, a goalkeeper who will appear with a photo in soccer manuals, one you will surely admire.

Wake up, Gino, now we want to be happy with you!

You came to the world in this explosion of life that is Argentina,

in hours when we are in love with ourselves.

And he looks at how striking it is, huh.

I always thought that when I had a child, Christmas would take on another meaning: in a family without children since the last of us entered adulthood, I fantasized about excitement, surprises, gifts.

And yet, with just a few days left until Santa Claus arrives, I don't think it's better than this day.

Already.

Your Santa Claus will be Messi, this man who defied time and recovered from blows.

Four lost finals with the national team, Gino.

Just him, the one who wins everything, couldn't get this trophy representing the country.

Today he did it, surrounded by kids who have him as an idol and who wanted to win the Cup for him too.

So that he wouldn't say goodbye to soccer without this trophy in his showcase.

Messi did it and that is why these are also days to go out, say that you are Argentine and feel that special aura.

While we receive messages from friends who award you a little part of this achievement, we laugh.

“Gino arrived with the Cup under his arm”, writes Pipi and also Flor and also Noe and Paloma, Vero and many others.

Your dad inflates his chest and lists the titles Boca has won since you were born, two months ago.

You were our most beautiful cabal, you will be our amulet forever.

I want you to know that almost everything I know about life I learned from football, playing it or watching it.

And that if you ever ask me what makes life worth living, I have a ball game to start answering you.

That Messi outfit that we put on you today is a source of pride and an intention: that you know that a World Cup can make you happy.

That today in the streets being Argentine is looking at each other and laughing with your eyes, hugging strangers, drinking from the same bottle or the same mate, starting to cry with happiness.

Today to be Argentines, like us, is to be part of history.

There is and will not be, Gino, mythological stories, inventions or exaggerations with you, because you will have all the videos in the world at your disposal to review this Cup. To look at Messi from behind to front, with cameras from above and from the side, collective and personal monitoring.

There will be no fables or lies: you will have everything at hand to review it and I bet you that even then you will not stop being surprised.

You won't be able to figure out his tricks either.

And it's true, yes.

You could have been born in countries with more organized societies.

More equitable, fairer.

Less uneven.

Less punished.

It could have touched you in Denmark, in Finland, in Norway.

But not.

You got here, you got the best country in the world.

Now that your eyes are narrowing, that your eyelids seem to weigh you down, I better not write to you anymore.

She let you travel to one of your dreams.

Go rest, son, you already made me the happiest mom in the world.

Subscribe here

Subscribe to continue reading

Read without limits

Keep reading

I'm already a subscriber