negreira and the passions

Try telling a friend in love that your partner is not what it seems.

You will lose the friendship.

Passions do not admit reasons, not even in football, that rational game until a team makes it sentimental.

From there, the debates become unbearable because we fill them with prejudices.

And because in the field of passions, admitting a weakness in our team is like betraying the country.

But it's not the homeland, it's just football, a game, and we should relax and make an effort not to deceive the truth.

I'll start talking about mine, to calm suspicions.

If I declare that I have serious qualms with the Super League, I am not speaking ill of Florentino and much less of Real Madrid.

I am arguing about the Super League, a project called, in my opinion, to depopularize soccer by weakening a soccer middle class that sports the backbone of countries and even continents.

As the Super League project is led by Florentino, who chairs Real Madrid, Madridistas have to be uncritical out of patriotic loyalty.

No sir.

You can have an opinion about the Super League, another opinion about Florentino and still another about Real Madrid.

It is not a sentimental unit that forces us to submit opinions out of a misunderstood loyalty.

Soccer is prone to that kind of misunderstanding that mixes things of a different nature.

One that has been with me all my life is the one that says: what do you prefer, play well or win?

As if they were antagonistic concepts.

I prefer to play well and win.

Well, in Argentina there are two philosophical schools that have been debating this point for 50 years.

Here, if we stick to the darts that Xavi and Simeone throw at each other, we are going the same way, although for now, in a civilized tone.

All this to get to the topic of the year: the Negreira case.

In essence, 7.3 million euros that Barça paid for 17 years to the vice president of the National Committee of Referees.

The contract commits four Barça presidents, including the outraged current president.

The scandal, because there is no other word to define it, was uncovered by Cadena Ser in Barcelona, ​​in an impeccable journalistic exercise.

A case that, as was to be expected, unleashed an aggressive literature from opposing trenches, while Barça continues to postpone explanations while allowing suspicions to grow.

As passions do not rest, Barcelona entrenches itself in its identity and allows itself to sing "this is how Madrid wins" due to a foul by Nacho in the last clásico.

For a foul!

At the moment!

Prejudices admit no evidence to the contrary and stop at nothing.

There is a beautiful viral video from

that is recreated in the Barça of the last 20 years.

He wonders if Ronaldinho's magic was not legal (of course it was, even the Bernabéu applauded him), or the wonders of Messi (without a doubt the greatest genius this century produced), or Guardiola's Barça, or Luis Enrique's (two glorious cycles, why not?).

Don't worry, we rational people know how to recognize excellence.

But don't change the conversation for me.

We're not talking about that.

It's not even those with the other color shirt who are weakening that period of which Barcelona fans feel so proud.

The suspicions are being planted by Barça itself by failing to explain some news that, honestly, is inexplicable.

But since passions are what they are, it is easier to sing "this is how Madrid wins" than to admit that Barça has slipped, muddying its own history.

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