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Why does Madrid always win? | sports

A club that pushes. Madrid fans love the spectacle, but they do not associate it with a footballing way of being, but with the talent of their players. It is they who imposed their seal. Di Stéfano’s Madrid is the founding myth of the club’s winning character, but then came Madrid ye-ye, that of La Quinta, the Galactic… It is never a coach who is installed in memory. I think that is healthy, because it tells us about real power: football belongs to the players. Now we come to this Madrid also a winner, still without a name because, from Cristiano to Ramos, passing through the power of the midfielders, there are plenty of names. The essential thing is that when a player arrives at Madrid he immediately learns that anything that is not winning is called a catastrophe. The club simply asks them to live up to the story. The fans too, and without any kindness. The one who supports that pressure is apt.

Further back still. When there is an underlying idea, it is easy to explain success. But in Madrid style has never revealed anyone. The style is to win, it is heard from time to time. Not quite. But winning was, from the beginning of time, an institutional necessity. Barça found a reason to be tied to the force of identity. If he won, the better; but the defeat was integrated into his story. Instead, to settle in the collective imagination, Madrid needed a great stadium, exceptional players and a constant ambition to win. This is how it was imposed, as a reference, to other teams that were born in Madrid with similar aspirations, but that disappeared along the way or did not reach the same dimension. The need to win was born with the club, it filtered into the fans and through invisible cracks it reached the locker room. Also that of rivals. Important point, because fear should not be underestimated.

The hero who asked for forgiveness. Valverde, like a good Uruguayan, knows that there are kicks that cannot be stopped. Overwhelming force. He also knows, because he grew up in a world of codes, that these actions are not to be proud of and he knew how to ask for forgiveness. The incredible thing is that the defendant showed an ethic superior to that of the courts. Everything that happened around Valverde’s action is to think about. We live in a time when the force of the impact, and the nonsense that is said to protect it, guarantees entertainment for those who do not distinguish good from evil. A growing number of people. The action did not prevent Valverde from being recognized as the best player of the match and Simeone congratulating him on the way to the dressing room. Nor that certain journalism presented him as a hero. We will soon see snipers who, if they get the shot right, will have their statue in the stadium.

Open the door in January. At Barça, a coach left through the back door for another to enter, also through the back door. The one in front was full of people who did not want to enter: Xavi, Koeman, Allegri, Pochettino … The luck is that a gentleman left thanking him for the exciting speech of an admirer of the cause to arrive in his place. The two trainers mitigated the damage. Barça week reminded me of a coach friend who used to say: “If something goes well, we are not responsible.” At Barça they believe that the problem is called style, which is why Quique Setién, but in reality it is called a result, as Valverde will already know, which was not reached by two Leagues because he failed in the Champions League. And he lost the Super Cup after a match where he honored the style! Paradox: modern football is getting stale.

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