2023-10-29 04:33:56
Go ahead, I’m a Barça fan. It is the most famous team in the city where I was born. I grew up watching their games on TV in a bar while socializing with friends from the studios. Those types of memories create an indelible emotional bond. Furthermore, since I am 1.75 meters tall, I feel identified with their game philosophy, which prioritizes the short, skilled player over the overwhelming giant. It is the only possible strategy so that we Mediterraneans can beat Haaland from time to time.
Therefore, my Barcelona fandom is incontestable. Despite which, allow me to tell you that this “sociological Madridism” that my countryman Joan Laporta has invented is simply a story to divert the focus from the thorny and shameful Negreira matter. Any of us Catalans who have lived in Madrid for a long time and who know the capital in depth know that such a thing does not exist in any way. Madrid is a very multifaceted, vast, multiform place, which cannot be reduced only to Real Madrid. The striking thing is that, when Catalans living in Madrid return to live in Barcelona, as has happened to me, and we explain that experience to our countrymen (who have not lived in the capital and are totally unaware of it), they refuse to believe us.
Aware of this phenomenon, Laporta knows perfectly what he is doing. Something that has become fashionable lately among Catalan commentators who work a lot in Madrid and which simply consists of being misleading. They are looking for a term that vaguely reminds us of that “sociological Francoism” that was spoken of at the death of the dictator, to connote the rival of inconcrete and dark things and to blame him for his own mistakes. And it is worrying how easily my most ignorant fellow citizens buy the misleading argument. It is an operation that began here, a long time ago, with some regional politicians who only had the skills of leaders of ultra clubs. What is sought is to “hooliganize” politics and politicize sport for self-interest in each of the particular cases.
[[QUOTE:PULL|||Lo que no hay que hacer jamás es convertir al rival en adversario y, mucho menos, en enemigo]]
The current problem is that, until recently, this mechanism was a phenomenon resulting from believing one’s own lies. Not now. Now they know that it is not true, but they splash around in such undesirable messes that the only desperate solution they find is to become excessively intoxicated; something that poisons everything without serving any purpose. Because if we had to accept all this pseudo-sociological charlatanism, it would be inevitable to conclude that there is also a supposed “sociological Barcelonaism” and that, in fact, it would be intellectually more similar to sociological Francoism than any other. Suffice it to remember the defense that Xavi Hernández has always made of the Qatari dictatorship when he worked there. He used the same reasons that sociological Francoism used here at the time to vindicate the regime. Namely: that the result was a safe country even though it oppressed women, workers and homosexuals. In both cases, it is about licking the hand that feeds you, no matter how objectionable it may be.
All these ridiculous intellectuals are typical of specific people and Barça is bigger than all of them. Let’s not let them spoil us[[LINK:INTERNO|||Article|||653d339dea7db0e45680b1b2||| el «fair-play» del clásico]]. Real Madrid is our eternal rival and that is wonderful. I like it for that. To enjoy that infinite future of classic afternoons (so many memories!), what you should never do is turn your rival into an adversary and, much less so, an enemy.
Laporta has gained weight and aged. It is not an insult; it is a fact. A common, unavoidable and biological fact. He is a charismatic man and now he has to choose between the real charisma that he treasured or the self-indulgent charisma-dandruff of Latin countries. There is a positive charisma and a negative one. The charisma-dandruff of Latinidad is that of football from the old days of Jesús Gil. He transfers himself to politics not only with the mayorships of Marbella, but also with the energetic and albiceleste ways of vociferants like Milei. That’s the way Joan ends up in a jacuzzi with gold chains or trying to pique like Rubiales. Contain your imagination or you will end up traveling along those sad routes.
#Sociology #geography