They neither know how to win nor do they know how to lose

1. Today I wanted to talk about the merits of Hansi Flick, who has won every final he's played in as a coach, and at Barça alone, he's already won twice, and against Real Madrid. Or Pau Cubarsí, the only defender in the world who can handle one-on-one situations with Vinícius, Mbappé, or Bellingham and take the ball away cleanly, with poetic elegance. Or Lamine Yamal, such a young and brazen genius who both gives away two goals in a final and dyes his hair with a kind of Yatekomo noodles that don't go unnoticed (and is the envy of those of us who don't invest in shampoo). Or Ferran Torres, the player who three months ago was pulling water and mud out of Paiporta, with the necessary discretion of a solidarity without fanfare, and who on Saturday was chosen the best player in a match that will go down in history. The final in Seville was a monument to spectacle football. The two best teams in the world were playing, and the best team won, with the final shot.

2. But the game became so strange, before and after the game, that I prefer to talk about Real Madrid. For once, I understood, and came close to buying, what I've heard so many culés say: "I'd rather Madrid lose than Barça win." Both things happened at La Cartuja when it seemed at least that this extremely pleasurable phenomenon could be repeated. The end of the game, with Rüdiger sent off for throwing a bottle at the referee before being held back by four teammates, Lucas Vázquez being sent off for invading the pitch for protesting a clear foul by Mbappé, and Bellingham also being sent off for aggressively addressing the referee, was a sad sight. And they didn't send off Vinícius because they didn't notice that he was the first to throw an object and, as they do so many times, hide his hand. That Madrid doesn't know how to lose. But four days ago, they showed that they don't know how to win either.

3. In the Champions League, after eliminating Atlético Madrid in a penalty shootout with that scandalous refereeing favor, some of those same players confronted the Atlético fans. Rüdiger made a gesture of slitting their throats, Mbappé grabbed the grasshopper so they could eat it, Vinícius showed them the logo of the 15 European Cups... Shall we go on? The state of tension of that team is a clear symptom of decline. Florentino Pérez's model, successful due to the avalanche of European Cups, will crumble if he doesn't win. The character, so uncritically adulated, is already making a mess. And, with his spoiled-child tantrums, he leads his club into absurd situations. The boycott of the Ballon d'Or gala and the blocking of the Madrid team's plane because the jury chose City's Rodrigo over Vinícius was a warning of a lack of sportsmanship. The way the club's official television channel has been used for years to preemptively scare/coerce/intimidate referees, either after the fact or after the fact, borders on criminal activity. When paid journalism takes this turn, and even goes beyond propaganda, it becomes a practice with mafia-like tendencies. The threat of not playing the final if the referee wasn't changed or Ancelotti's absence from the pre-match press conference sully the whiteness of a far from stately Real Madrid.

4. And the referee? Ricardo de Burgos Bengoetxea came onto the field emotionally drained and hid it as best he could. It's also strange that referees, who never speak, held a press conference the day before, in which the referee's tears went around the world. When your son, at school, is told that his father "is a thief," everything shakes. And he's right. He isn't. He's simply bad. In the match, he awarded three penalties, and none of them were. And the ones he did award on Cubarsí or Ferran, neither he nor the VAR saw. Madrid had already done their job. But they didn't have enough.