Friends from Girona

BarcelonaAs a result of Girona’s first promotion to the First Division, an absurd rivalry was created between the fans of this team and those of Espanyol. Two traditionally friendly clubs – transfers, pre-season matches – ended up facing each other as if they were lifelong rivals. You can find explanations that, depending on who makes them, give the reason to one or the other. In these cases, as in all fights, we tend to magnify the grievances received and forget the ones provoked. But it is a meaningless spiral and the desire to argue always weighs more than the reasons for the discussion.

In general, Girona and Girona generate sympathy for me. Like many Barcelonans, I claim my Empordà origins. But in my case, it’s true: look in La Bisbal, Figueres or Castelló d’Empúries and you’ll find an important colony of fines: all cousins. Those from Palafrugell, which also exist, are not ours. I also like that Catalan football is represented in the professional elite in all its diversity. And if I think of my Girona friends, their footballing happiness is my happiness.

Because football is, in short, an opportunity to be fully happy (and also to have great upsets). They are people who are irrationally passionate about colors, who delegate to professionals the possibilities of living – or not – weekly moments of happiness. There are also structural reasons for not having sympathy for Girona: it is the only Spanish professional football franchise (remember its vicarious position on the subject of the Superliga), it represents the guardiolismo-business sector and is part of a group of an Arab sheikh related to the good and best of the emirs of those countries so respectful of human rights. Now, I understand that there are also structural reasons to criticize my club: the apoliticals who cover up their embarrassment with the flag, an owner of a country that is not exemplary, or so many other things. But my Espanyol and my friends’ Girona are something else: passion, life, childhood.

I don’t want any rivalry with Girona. Let’s love each other, let’s be friends. And even more: let us be allies. Because we have the same problem with different symptoms: a monster that doesn’t let us grow. We don’t fight over the crumbs left by the artificially inflated giant that eats it all. Armand Carabén has already said that Catalonia is more than a club. This season, in Primera de Fútbol we will be three. We trust that journalists and the media will keep this in mind. We do not ask for anything exceptional from Girona or parrots: only equanimity and professionalism. I’m a conscious naive: I don’t plan on resigning.

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