Learning to share parental love has to be exciting, a life lesson. But monopolizing everything, let’s not fool ourselves, is something irreplaceable and incomparable to any form of affection. We only children keep that secret like the Holy Grail of love. Spoiled, spoiled, selfish. For sure yes. They envy us because we are the center of any family event and we universally inherit—and without breaking a sweat—what our parents accumulated with enormous effort. Although that’s not even the main issue. The best thing is to experience total and indissoluble love. Infinite grace and eternal forgiveness of our mistakes (and defeats). That’s why, at first, when a little brother arrives it’s kind of funny. But when the kid starts stealing our light, our lives slowly darken.
Last week, against Getafe, Iñaki Williams (29 years old) scolded his brother Nico (21 years old) in the middle of the game because he didn’t pass the ball to him. On social network Well played. And he may even have been right. But there was also something of that firstborn who watches how the little one, protected by him until then, eats his toast. I told you, he was very good. But when he himself agrees with you so crudely and in front of everyone, it’s no longer funny to him. He is the talented intern to whom you explained a thousand little battles and then he is a thousand times better reporter than you. He is envy, he is jealousy, the worst of love. It is the law of life. They make us old. And that, with all its harshness, is what Barça is going to experience with Girona when they walk around Europe and remember that they lost the two games they played against them – even though Xavi thinks they deserved to win – and see that old coexistence evaporate. From now on, if you have to buy only one shirt on the banks of the Onyar River, it will be Girona’s.
Barça, at odds almost out of obligation with Espanyol, was always punished by this lack of family support. He never learned to share. It had it all: gushing fans, a box with presidents of the Generalitat, the media, the monopoly of identification with Catalonia, the covers of the two sports newspapers with their gift Blaugrana duvets… Even the inhabitants of Girona were Barça fans! ! And the culés, when the miracle happened and that little guy appeared in first class, saw Montilivi’s team as a nice little brother, an argument to convince themselves that the disagreement with Espanyol was not atavistic, but reactive. Those are one of ours. The problem is that in two years he has had a growth spurt and now you have to turn your head up to look him in the eyes (in play and in the classification). And the culé public applauds, and thinks of them as inspiration. And he even fantasizes about healing his melancholy in his meetings.
The match with Girona will be from now on, especially if Espanyol remains in second place, the Catalan derby. And any final they play will have the entire culé stands supporting them. The children, unlike what always happened with affections in football, will be the ones who teach their parents what it means to be on that team. And that is no longer a friendly approach. It has all the ingredients to make the Barcelona board and coach nervous. Girona, and that will be the last pang in the side, is also the message in a bottle that arrives from Manchester and details how to build a good team and run a club. Life changes. Although some of us prefer to continue thinking that we are the only one.
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