Barça and Madrid, between fantasy and nothingness

No team wins a title in October, but they can accumulate a capital of excitement among the fans and respect among rivals. We are talking about Barça, which has managed to make fans all over the world ask what day and what time they play, because their matches are a promise of play, goals, and, at times, fantasy.

The infatuation is not new: the Barça of Cruyff and Guardiola already transcended mere football interest to become a mass culture phenomenon. Those teams reinforced the identity of a club that has always had a taste for good play and talent developed at La Masia, and, even more importantly, they showed Catalan society the path to self-esteem through victory, without poor loser excuses or victimhood.

And just as if they were communicating vessels, Barça rises and Madrid sinks. It does not mean that Madrid cannot win titles (of course they can, with the squad they have), but that their game interests no one. In fact, in the chapter of titles that do not count, there are a couple of notable ones from this summer: Spain wins the World Cup without a single Madrid player and the national team captain, Rodri, prefers to come to Barça. Kids want to be Lamine and not Mbappé. Or Aitana, or Claudia Pina. The sporting sclerosis reaches the point where the president of Madrid, instead of buying play, has bought a narrative and relies on an outdated troublemaker like Mourinho to win at all costs and, if he does not win, to dirty and stir up trouble so that the blame is always someone else's, trusting that those with the Madrid megaphones will cover up this nothingness with decibels. The results of one day will be better or worse, but these are the trends. It is the blaugrana joy of winning while enjoying and moving far beyond victimhood.