It is difficult to find a story like this in Catalan sport. Vicenç Garcia (es Mercadal, Menorca, 1945) arrived in Santa Coloma de Gramenet as a young man when the town still had fields and orchards right where there is now cement. As a young man, he was a good footballer and even debuted in friendly matches with Espanyol's first team, despite being a Barcelona supporter. Afterwards, he was a coach in Barça's youth categories and for many teams, while he prioritized taking care of the family business, Industrias Garcia Grau. And almost as a game, he discovered futsal and created a team for his workers which, over time, became the second oldest futsal club in the world: Futbol Sala Garcia, known by everyone as Industrias Garcia, one of the best schools for this sport in the country. At 80 years old, Vicenç is finally retiring this summer. He is stepping down as president of the club he founded half a century ago and closing a chapter.

Alexander Zverev has shed the weight that had prevented him from smiling in recent years. The Hamburg player has finally won a Grand Slam tournament. After a decade of failing when it seemed he would win one of the four most coveted tournaments, he was able to raise his arms to the sky in Paris, triumphant. In the Roland Garros final, the German lived up to expectations, defeating Italian Flavio Cobolli in five sets (6-1, 4-6, 6-4, 6-7, and 6-1). All the stars had aligned in Zverev's favor this year, and he took advantage of it. First, the defending champion, Carlos Alcaraz, withdrew due to injury. Then, the world number 1, Jannik Sinner, was surprisingly eliminated, feeling unwell during his third-round match. And the veteran Serbian Novak Djokovic also did not capitalize on the scenario to reach the final. It was Zverev's year, who at times played with fire, especially after seeing Cobolli force a fifth set. In this last set, however, the player born in Florence collapsed.

The Iranian national team will be one of the main protagonists of this World Cup. The team of a state at war with the United States will play precisely in the United States. Two clashing governments, enmities, with bombings every so often, have finally agreed to prevent the Iranian team from making a sports boycott. Never in the history of the World Cups has a qualified team boycotted. There had been boycotts in the qualifying rounds, such as when the Soviet Union withdrew from the play-off prior to the 1974 World Cup in protest of Pinochet's coup d'état in Chile, but never has a qualified team renounced the championship for political reasons. Nor will Iran do so.

Sport sometimes makes fairy tales seem real. All those youngsters who want to be like Serena Williams or Rafa Nadal dream that one day they will reach a Grand Slam final. Few achieve it. But, from time to time, in tennis, logic seems to break into a thousand pieces and an unexpected guest reaches the final. It's as if the system failed and a door opened for a modest athlete. This year, a second-tier player who has been competing for years without making much noise has reached the great final of Roland Garros. The Polish Maja Chwalinska arrived in Paris without attracting anyone's attention and has become, as if by magic, the woman of the moment. In the great final, however, she could not continue surprising everyone and lost in two sets against the Russian Mirra Andreeva, 19 years old. It is the first major title for the Siberian player, who officially competes without a flag, as sanctions against Russian athletes are still in force after the invasion of Ukraine. Andreeva won 6-3 and 6-2 in 1 hour and 22 minutes. Andreeva, coached by the Spaniard Conchita Martínez, has become the first Russian to lift the cup since Maria Sharapova in 2014 and the youngest winner since Monica Seles' third title in 1992.

On June 11, millions of people will be paying attention to everything happening at the Azteca Stadium in Mexico City. For the third time in its history, this venue will host the opening match of a World Cup, in this case the duel between Mexico and South Africa. Never before has a stadium been the venue for three different World Cups, although this year it will not be able to host the final, as it will take place on July 19 at the MetLife Stadium in New Jersey. In a modern 21st-century World Cup full of newly built stadiums with commercial brand names, the Azteca connects with the past. A stadium with its own personality, now that all modern stadiums look alike. The venue in the south of Mexico City has undergone a major renovation to adapt it to modern times, although it remains the stadium where in 1970 Pelé led the most beautiful team of all time and where in 1986, Maradona touched the sky with Argentina. A stadium to which songs have been dedicated, which appears in films, and which hides a surprising history, as to build it, one man was on the verge of losing everything.

The spirit of Barcelona 92 never dies. It is always special when the notes of the songs that people learned by heart that very special summer are played. Notes that have sounded again at the tribute and remembrance event for Joan Antoni Samaranch, the president of the International Olympic Committee who, a few years earlier, in 1986, uttered those words “A la ville... de Barcelona”.“A la ville... de Barcelona”. The name of his native city. 16 years after the death of the Barcelonian who achieved the greatest international sporting success, an event was held at the Palauet Albéniz that brought together many of the faces who, together with Samaranch, made Barcelona Olympic. It was a day of reunions and greetings among those who wanted to vindicate a figure who was capable of modernizing the Olympic movement and, by extension, the Catalan capital.

Few times has a football jersey generated so much noise even before going on sale. Two weeks ago, Athletic Club presented what will be their jersey for the next season. Like other clubs, they did so right at the end of the current season, debuting it in their last league match away to Real Madrid. The jersey, however, is not to everyone's liking, as the Basque club has made a small modification. In recent years, they played with a small Basque flag, the ikurriña, on the back of the neck. But for the next season, they have opted for a map with the silhouette of Euskal Herria with an ikurriña inside. The reaction of parties like Vox or UPN has caused quite a stir, especially in Navarre.

The organizers of Roland Garros are in despair. First they discovered that Carlos Alcaraz would not be going due to injury. So they prepared to place the crown on Jannik Sinner, who was coming off winning all the clay court tournaments he had played. But the Italian felt unwell in his third-round match against the Argentine Juan Manuel Cerúndolo and surprisingly fell in five sets. "I haven't slept well and I've been wiped out, without energy," he explained afterwards. The organizers had Novak Djokovic left, who at 39 was aiming for one last major triumph. But he also fell, in his case against the Brazilian João Fonseca. While awaiting what the young Madrilenian Rafa Jódar might do, the tournament has been left without stars in the men's draw.And all this in a strange context. The main players, men and women, have been raising their voices in recent months to complain about the prizes they receive. Currently, Grand Slam tournaments allocate 12% and 15% of their profits to awarding prizes to players, which they consider to be too little given the huge amounts of money involved in Melbourne, Roland Garros, Wimbledon, and the US Open. Last season, a players' revolt was already simmering, which has escalated this year. Almost all of them have decided to show their discontent not only with their statements but also with their actions. For example, many refuse to participate in Roland Garros organizers' proposals to make viral videos. In press conferences, they answer increasingly briefly and never spend more than fifteen minutes with journalists. If the organizers don't go beyond 15%, they don't go beyond 15 minutes. The first to strongly raise their voice was the best player of the moment, the Belarusian Aryna Sabalenka, world number 1. "When you realize the numbers we generate and see what we players receive... I think we are the ones who put on the show. We are fed up. I feel that without us there would be no tournament, there would be no entertainment. We deserve to be paid a higher percentage. At some point, maybe, we will boycott the Grand Slams, yes. I feel that it is the only way we have to fight for our rights, there is no other," she said. Other players have since joined. Djokovic supported her: "The new generations are arriving and I am happy to see leaders of our sport, like Sabalenka, taking a step forward and truly understanding how tennis politics works." And he added that he was a little disappointed with the two great players of the moment, Sinner and Alcaraz, because they weren't saying anything.

The triumph of Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League final led to a night of incidents in the French capital. While the team led by Luis Enrique celebrated winning the title, incidents began in the streets of Paris that ended with the death of one person, a motorcyclist who fell. The French government announced 780 arrests – 457 of them in police custody – 32% more than a year ago for the same celebration. For years in France, sporting successes, both for clubs and the national team, have ended in serious riots. In this case, 57 police officers were injured, as well as 219 participants in the festivities, eight of whom seriously. Of the 780 arrests, 480 took place in Paris.

The Italian Marco Bezzecchi has caused euphoria at the Italian MotoGP Grand Prix at the Mugello circuit, achieving his fourth victory of the year and strengthening his lead in the general classification. Bezzecchi waited for the opportune moment to overtake his compatriot Francesco Pecco Bagnaia (Ducati Desmosedici GP26), the leader until that moment, to escape alone on the way to a fourth triumph of the season that makes him the leader of the category. Spaniard Jorge Martín (Aprilia RS-GP) finished third. Marc Márquez (Ducati Desmosedici GP26) started very strong, but finished in seventh position, conditioned by returning to the circuits only twenty days after undergoing surgery.

On Tuesday afternoon, a group of athletes were chatting at the facilities of the Real Club de Polo in Barcelona. Jordi Ros and Víctor Garcia were looking at some photos of themselves from 1992, when they were the first Catalans to participate in the Paralympic Games in wheelchair tennis. It was the year this discipline debuted on the Paralympic calendar. And it was precisely in Barcelona. "In our time, the miracle was being able to play. People thought we were crazy when they saw us in wheelchairs with rackets. And suddenly we found ourselves playing in front of a packed court cheering us on," Garcia recalled. The Madrid native Dani Caverzaschi, one of the best players at the moment, is chatting with them. And looking at the photos, he notices an important detail: before, they competed with the same chairs that people used in their private lives, not like now. Now there are specialized chairs for competing with a small wheel just behind to provide balance and prevent players from falling backward when they gain momentum to hit the ball. "How did you serve?" Caverzaschi asked. "Well, as best we could," Ros replied humorously. "We served differently. You couldn't gain momentum by bringing your arm back, you had to serve with less power, but when we started competing, we always ended up falling on our backs at some point," they remembered.

Marta Garcia Farrés (Calldetenes, 1992) has written the history of Catalan ski mountaineering. For the last 15 years, this woman from Osona who has put down roots in Puigcerdà has shone in World Championships and European Championships in a sport that underwent a revolution once it entered the Olympic program of the last Games, when Oriol Cardona reached the sky. Garcia narrowly failed to qualify for the Olympic event and recently announced that she is bringing her career to an end.

Anthony Gordon is the first signing for Barça for the third season with Hansi Flick. The 25-year-old English international footballer has reached an agreement with the Catalan club. This week, the Barça sporting director, Deco, has been in England negotiating with Newcastle United. The agreement between the three parties is now a fact and the footballer will sign his contract with Barça this Friday at 13:00 in the office of interim president Rafael Yuste. Afterwards, he will be presented at a press conference.

On July 25, 1975, Ladislao Kubala walked onto a football field at the head of a group of players. These men were not unknown footballers. They were the best of the Spanish league at the time, many of them destined to play in the Argentina World Cup a few years later under the command of Ladislao, who was then the national team coach. That was no ordinary match. To begin with, the field where these stars would play was made of sand. The audience was also different. No luxury and no giant stands. It was all the people of Sarral, a town in the Conca de Barberà region with fewer than two thousand inhabitants, surrounded by fields of vineyards and olive trees.

It was the time of the pandemic, when Tokyo organized a strange Olympic Games. Without spectators, with masks and safety distances. In Catalonia, a nine-year-old girl watched the artistic gymnastics competition on television, focused on Simone Biles, the great American star who at that event decided that her health was a priority over the pursuit of medals. And in front of the screen, Cora Noguer Muñoz asked her parents why there were no gymnasts from Mali. And with that question, everything changed.

“After receiving criticism all year, I hope they praise us a little now, as it's our turn. We are doing a very good job”. That’s how emphatically Cata Coll spoke after winning the Champions League final in Oslo (4-0). Barça once again touched the sky in Norway after a complicated season marked by criticism and doubts. After the triumph, it was time to celebrate. The night in Oslo was long. "We celebrated it as it should be," said the young Clara Serrajordi, from La Masia, when she arrived in Barcelona, where thousands of people were waiting on a stage on Avinguda de Maria Cristina despite the heatwave, which caused some scares among those present. This was not the case for Joan Laporta, who ended up on stage embracing Alexia Putellas while the members of the group Figa Flawas sang euphorically.

Flick's Barça is going on vacation. With a very high note and a grim face, as this team doesn't want to lose even a game of Parcheesi, they fell at Mestalla to end a magnificent season. Precisely in the stadium where Flick debuted as a coach in a league match two years ago, they had to lose in a game that also didn't have much history, in terms of Barça. Many players are already thinking more about the World Cup, which in a few weeks will arrive like an informational avalanche in our lives. If you've already won the league and there's not much at stake, you can't blame the international footballers, especially after seeing that one of theirs, Fermín López, won't be able to go to the United States due to an injury in the last match. The last game became the last chance to have a final photograph of Lewandowski in a blaugrana jersey. Scoring a goal, of course.

Spain is still full of mass graves with the bodies of Republican sympathizers. The cemetery of Alicante still has a very large one unexcavated. A cemetery that is like a time capsule to explain that era, in which the communist poet Miguel Hernández is buried near where the tomb of the leader of the Falange, José Antonio Primo de Rivera, was. The two Spains, very close. Primo de Rivera, the Francoists exhumed him to send him in procession to a tomb in Madrid with all honors. Tens of thousands of Republicans, on the other hand, remain in grave number 9 in Alicante. One of these people is Antonio Ortega, president of Real Madrid.

Pep Guardiola leaves Manchester City. After days when everyone knew the secret, this Friday it has been made official with a farewell video from the Catalan coach. It was a logical step, as it will allow the Santpedor-born manager to be bid farewell by his fans this Sunday in the last match of the season. On Monday night, the Daily Mail reported on Guardiola's decision to end this victorious cycle in which he has managed to make Manchester City one of the best teams in the world. Now it is official.

When Robert Lewandowski announced on Saturday that he would leave Barça, he explained that he had found his corner of the world in Catalonia. Not everyone finds it. He has found it near the sea and Barcelona. And thousands of Barça fans returned this appreciation by bidding him farewell as they should have in a Spotify Camp Nou that was moved when, five minutes from the end, he left the pitch crying. His teammates rallied around him, hugging him, in a memorable image. Only his goal against Betis in the last match of the season was missing in a stadium where only victories have been seen (3-1).