'Hegoak ebaki banizkio' or the contradiction of celebrating with defeat

The Real fans were singing at the end of the tie that had just pitted them against PSG and they were celebrating their team's excellent run in the Champions League, the one that had taken them to the round of 16, the one that back in December or even, at the end of the first half played in the Parc des Princes, he predicted good news for the royalists, but that the individual and collective talent of the Parisians had turned it into an impossible mission.

The fans celebrated with that contradiction that means celebrating with defeat, not defeat, which is not the same, in this current world only made for winners, perhaps because they are already used to jumping onto the field with their backs to the field when Real scores. Anoeta and its fans hug and jump, creating a compact wall that wallows in happiness without looking at the field when the current thing is to look for a

selfie

of the celebration while looking at the grass.

Honor @RealSociedad

🤍#UCL #LaCasaDelFútbol pic.twitter.com/qw5zQcMcFt

— Football on Movistar Plus+ (@MovistarFutbol) March 5, 2024

Contradictions that took me to a Valencian night in the last century when, upon returning from the lost final against Deportivo de La Coruña, that final that had to be postponed due to the hail storm, the Che fans received us with applause and festive firecrackers and that our coach, Luis Aragonés, after smiling, greeting and shaking a few hands, defined entering the bus as a real disaster.

Wise

Luis believed

that defeats should not be celebrated, that runners-up are useless and that those who are happy in defeat will never be prepared for victory.

Come on, the best fuel for the future is the frustration and pain of the present and to my reflection that we also had to celebrate the journey, the path, the adventure until reaching the final and fighting it until the last second, his response was something so a do

you believe?

brief, which together with low eyebrows and a look over his glasses made me see that my idea had not penetrated nor had it given him a second of satisfaction, I'm not saying happiness.

The fact is that the Real fans decided to enjoy the route, the moment, the stage and those who were on the grass felt that the effort had been worth it and that they were not walking alone.

And if you don't look for the images of Imanol, his coach, who explains it with his gestures much better than I do with my words.

If not, look at Marcellin, who fate has led him to look in a mirror that he already thought had expired when he returned to Marseille and returned to the Vélodrome.

That destiny that thanks him for the fact that his command of French is still a beginner for not understanding anything that was thrown at him from the stands and to whom destiny also gave him the possibility of demonstrating on the Marseille grass his worth as a coach.

There are times, most of the time, that victory is the ability to face our own ghosts, our own fears, our doubts and that is the scenario from which we come out better if we are able to face whatever the situation may be. final result of the match (here Luis Aragonés would say to me again:

Are you sure, Zubi?

).

Because that would lead us to a debate about what it means to win and what it means to lose, which would occupy us much more than this article, but which connects us with those words that were sung in chorus in Anoeta by Joxean Artze's poem with music by the legendary Mikel Laboa:

“Hegoak ebaki banizkio, / nerea izango zen, / ez zuen alde egingo.

/ Bainan, honela, / ez zen gehiago txoria izango, / eta nik... / txoria nuen maite”

(If I had cut off its wings / it would have been mine / it would not have escaped me. / But then, / it would have ceased to be bird / And I… / what I loved was the bird).

Because anyway, to just celebrate the victories, you have to stop being a bird and become a hawk, a pure predator.

And for that you also have to be worth it.

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