The love of ball and neighborhood culture
Madrid won a classic that, for Barça, seemed to be reduced to a single episode: whether that ball went in or not. The action was so enigmatic that it produced a miracle of perception: in Catalonia it was a goal and in Madrid, it was not. Nothing unusual because the fan of any team is not characterized by his breadth of vision. Of everything that was hidden behind the controversy, the most unfair was the indifference with which Modric’s game was analyzed. A shame, because his football is stellar and because the character does not deserve even the smallest of displeasures. His 90 minutes were all Modric. He watered the field with sweat and applied the right speed and judgment to each play. In his game you can see the love of the ball and the neighborhood culture, in which instinct, now wise, rules.
When a friend goes…
Everything seems simple in the Modric universe, like that brilliant definition by Ricardo Bochini when he explained his analog game: “I put myself where there is no one and I give it to the one who is alone.” In his 100 by seventy five, he reigns with the inside or outside of his foot, short or long, to continue or to accelerate the play. When conviction meets good taste, seduction arises. Real Madrid fans have always been in love with his displays, but now even more so because there is a desire to say thank you for a kind of advanced nostalgia. Although every time he plays he imposes his hierarchy, an uncomfortable feeling is emerging: Modric, accused of being 38 years old, is leaving us. Sometimes a professional relationship is broken with indifference, like a procedure; other times the breakup is angry, like a divorce; Finally it can be inevitable like the passage of time, painful like guilt and exciting like dignity.
The school player
Modric’s importance in all these years transcends the playing field. We are talking about a “Ballon d’Or” (in history only seven Madrid players have achieved that honor) who, due to his prominence and professionalism, became an educator. It is impossible not to admire Modric and this is not an inconsequential point because in football, as in so many other sporting and artistic activities, he is first admired and then imitated. Since talent cannot be replicated, the legacy that Modric will leave is a treasure made of competitive seriousness, discretion, responsibility, dedication… Real Madrid is learned through demand and Modric, who pushed himself from the first day, renewed that cult to the effort and will leave that legacy to new generations.
I’m taking my hat off, but…
“Football is worthless if the man is not up to the task,” said Brazilian journalist Nelson Rodríguez. In the case of Modric, it causes as much pain to say goodbye to the player as it does to the man, because in both aspects he was the height of the club’s greatness. Watching him play, it seems incredible to see the uselessness of intelligence, refined technique and fabulous talent in undoing a prejudice. I have always believed that players should leave two years before their decline begins so that the accumulated glory does not fray, but there are cases and cases. Modric is a walking example who, whether home or away, goes from ovation to ovation. If he manages to understand that he can be Modric from time to time and not in every game, I hope he stays at the club forever and ever.
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