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 wonder what day and at what time it plays, because its matches are a promise of play, goals, and, at times, fantasy.

The infatuation is not new: the Barça teams of Cruyff and Guardiola already went beyond mere footballing 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 excuses from a bad loser or victimhood.

And much like communicating vessels, as Barça rises, Madrid sinks. It does not mean that Madrid cannot win titles (of course they could, 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 striking ones 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 game, has bought a narrative and trusts an expired troublemaker like Mourinho to win at any cost and, if he doesn't win, to dirty and irritate so that the blame is always someone else's, trusting that those with the Madrid loudspeakers 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 it and moving far beyond victimhood.