The musician and music

"Bach is the musician and Mozart is the music," that great master of musicians, Oriol Martorell, used to say. In any case, and following his idea of ​​attributing to one person the highest representation of the profession and to another the personification of the specialty, let's play for a while, since this is a matter of taste.

Messi is the footballer and Cruyff is football, I think. In some geographical latitudes, or age groups, the footballer would be Pelé or Maradona, because the beauty and competitive effectiveness of their football reached the level of magic, while Cruyff, magical on the field himself, developed a whole conceptual framework (of which Guardiola has been the main disciple) that positions on the field must serve to defend and to attack, which requires mastery of technique and a great deal of intelligence in decision-making. In fact, rereading chronicles from the seventies, I realize that the idea that, with Cruyff, Barça was playing the kind of football everyone would be playing in 2000 gained traction among critics of the time.

A good friend tells me it's the other way around, that Cruyff would be the footballer—because of his way of understanding the game—and that Messi was going to be football itself—because it flowed from him without any apparent theoretical complications, and when you saw him play, with that repertoire of wonders he gifted in every match, you could say, "He was football."

It's a Byzantine discussion, of course. And if you want to fill your Christmas after-dinner conversations, just broaden your perspective: what would be the perfect pairing in contemporary music? And in literature or film? Have a wonderful holiday season.