Every World Cup leaves a handful of images destined to become icons. The hand of God by Maradona, Pelé lifting the World Cup or Lionel Messi celebrating his first world title wearing a bisht, the black and gold robe they placed on him before lifting the trophy in Qatar 2022. But if there is one photograph that has marked the prelude and a large part of the narrative of the 2026 World Cup, it is a very different one: a twenty-year-old Messi bathing a baby who, almost two decades later, has become his rival in a World Cup final. That baby was Lamine Yamal.

"It was like a school: the kids in front and the kids behind. He sat in the front row", recalled Luis de la Fuente a few weeks ago in an interview with the newspaper The Guardian. He was talking about Lionel Scaloni. They met in 2017 as professor and student of the Spanish federation's coaching courses for former elite players and will meet again this Sunday in the World Cup final. The Spanish national team, current European champions, and the Argentine national team, current world and South American champions, will fight for a historic title. It will be an exciting double duel, between Leo Messi and Lamine Yamal on the pitch and between De la Fuente and Scaloni on the bench.

Television viewers are accustomed to seeing the familiar bug in a corner of the screen, the logo that reminds us at all times which channel we are watching. In mobile telephony, there is an equivalent: the Service Provider Name (SPN), the text that indicates which network the terminal is connected to and that appears in the top status bar, alongside indicators such as coverage or battery level.

"It's the most coveted jersey of the World Cup, without a doubt," states Karolina, an employee at the Adidas Store on Passeig de Gràcia. As we discuss the phenomenon behind this World Cup's most viral jersey, five people approach the shelf where the last few sizes of the Spanish national team's second kit are hanging, almost at the same time. Only a few large and extra-large sizes remain. "At first, only tourists were buying it, but as the tournament has progressed, many national buyers have also come. People associate it with a winning team," she explains. She adds that almost everyone is looking for the same jersey numbers: "Lamine Yamal, Pedri, and Cucurella."

If Barcelona did not install a giant screen, the surrounding municipalities did. Badalona, for example. While the mayor, Xavier García Albiol, followed the World Cup from New York, Plaça President Tarradellas became the meeting point for thousands of fans ready to push the Spanish team towards a new final.

If you fancy a documentary series of the kind that makes you look away from the screen to stop suffering, this is, without a shadow of a doubt, The dark wizard (The dark wizard), on the HBO Max platform. It is as distressing as it is addictive. You will very possibly devour the four episodes in one go. It is the story of the mountaineer Dean Potter, an expert in free climbing and wingsuit flying. He revolutionized highline –walking on a slackline suspended between cliffs– and was the main driving force behind free BASE –a discipline that combines climbing without any safety and BASE jumping–. Potter needed risk and adrenaline. His story, told by his close friends, constantly drifts between motivation and recklessness.The series is directed by two experts in mountaineering documentaries: Peter Mortimer and Nick Rosen. Beyond their talent for telling stories that hang by a thread thousands of meters high, they have the ability to be very demanding of the quality and dramatic intensity of the stories. They dose the information and the emotional evolution of the protagonists very well.The dark magician also has the virtue of revealing an inner story linked to another very famous mountaineering documentary that won an Oscar in 2019. It is Free solo, the film that recounted Alex Honnold's ascent of El Capitán, a vertical wall in Yosemite National Park, without ropes or any safety system. That documentary showed above all the psychological dimension of a protagonist who, at any moment, could fall to his death in front of the cameras. What was not explained in that documentary now emerges in the HBO Max series. In fact, Honnold is one of the witnesses who reveal, with surprising coldness, his relationship with Dean Potter. In The dark magician the competition, not always honest, between both climbers is made clear, and how their rivalry influenced the risks that Potter was willing to take so as not to lose prominence.The documentary series explains the extreme personality of Dean Potter and leads the viewer to question the motivations of these climbers who constantly flirt with the possibility of falling into the void. Traumatic childhood experiences, lack of limits, mental health, and narcissism are aspects that run through the story and provoke contradictory emotions in the viewer. The compilation of archive images is magnificent, especially for reconstructing Potter's personality, and the metaphorical resources of birds give a more symbolic and mystical dimension to the story. From the beginning, there is a restlessness that seems to foreshadow the end. An adrenaline-fueled and dizzying documentary series that, when you finish it, reconciles you with daily routines and the peace of boredom.

A study conducted with 228 basketball players warns that menstrual cycle alterations are prevalent among elite athletes and that this can affect both their well-being and their performance. The collective research, carried out by Pilar Crespo, Nuria Herranz, Víctor Estella, Esther Morencos, María Herranz, and Gil Roda, head of the medical area of the Barça Innovation Hub, concludes that more research is needed to better understand the impact on athletes' quality of life, performance, and susceptibility to injuries.More than three-quarters of the players surveyed reported dysmenorrhea (86.8%) and premenstrual syndrome (77.6%). In addition, more than half of the athletes stated they had heavy menstrual bleeding during menstruation and a quarter of the players included in the study reported having had amenorrhea at some point in their menstrual life.Previous research had shown how menstruation-related symptoms, such as abdominal cramps, tiredness, or fatigue, can limit players' training capacity, but the specific characteristics of the menstrual cycle and its relationship with performance, well-being, and injuries in athletes are not well understood. This cross-sectional study aimed to better understand the characteristics of the menstrual cycle (menarche, length, dysmenorrhea, amenorrhea, etc.) and the use of hormonal contraceptives among elite basketball players.More than 70% of women experience symptoms such as mood swings, fatigue, and physical discomfort during the premenstrual phase. In addition, most suffer from primary dysmenorrhea, intense and debilitating pain. Half of the women also report intense cramps, nausea, or headaches. To avoid these types of discomfort during important moments of the season, it is not unusual for female athletes to resort to hormonal contraceptives, as they help control the symptoms of premenstrual syndrome, dysmenorrhea, and other conditions. Pills suppress ovulation and reduce the thickness of the endometrium, which decreases prostaglandin production and, consequently, uterine contractions and menstrual pain. The problem is the side effects; weight changes and breast tenderness and pain. A quarter of the study participants reported using hormonal contraceptives. The most used (23.2%) was the oral pill.The researchers' conclusion is that more research and preventive and healthcare measures are needed for female athletes, because the prevalence of menstrual symptoms is high, cycle alterations are relatively frequent and can affect performance and increase injury risk. And it is especially relevant that many players do not have regular medical check-ups.Studies designed for men

As Raúl Medina, co-founder of Drop It, warns, there is a deficit in the control of women's health in sports. “80% or 90% of sports studies are conducted excluding female physiology and, therefore, training advice is given with men's hormonal bases in mind. Many studies tell women that they have to train like men. This, fortunately, is changing, because otherwise the results are not optimal,” he says.

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"It's a tremendous joy and something that almost seemed impossible," highlights Valdo (Villaseca de Laciana, León; 1981), former Espanyol player and player for the Cape Verde national team. He speaks of the feat of this African archipelago, one of the four debutants in this World Cup and Spain's first opponent this Monday in the group stage (6 PM, La 1). Cape Verde, a former Portuguese colony, is the second smallest country in the tournament's history by territory and the third by population with 4,000 km² and 600,000 inhabitants. The province of Girona has 6,000 and 850,000.

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Storm winds are blowing for Lleida football. To the category descents of two historic clubs from the region, such as Unió Esportiva Tàrrega (which falls to Segona Catalana) and Borges CF (to Tercera), three more simultaneous ones concentrated in Lleida city are added. It has been a long time since so many sporting failures have been accumulated in the capital: AEM's women's team will no longer continue in the Primera RFEF after thirteen years of competition; Atlètic Lleida, despite having opted to compete in the Segona RFEF, drops dramatically to Tercera; and Lleida Club de Futbol, in addition to falling into the abyss of the Lliga Elit (the sixth level of Spanish competitions), cannot find an investor to cover its debts and is one week away from disappearing.

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The Tàrrega-born Jaume Ponsarnau has just turned 55 and is doing so at one of the best moments of his sporting career. He has surpassed 500 official matches as a coach in the elite of Spanish basketball, has just renewed with Bilbao Basket until 2029, was chosen best coach of January in the Endesa league, and this Wednesday evening he plays with his team the decisive match of the FIBA Europe Cup final against PAOK Thessaloniki with only a six-point disadvantage.

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A Catalan app designed in Tarragona aims to revolutionize the world of women's training. "We are developing an application that uses artificial intelligence to help women understand their menstrual cycle. This allows for controlling all symptoms and adjusting personalized training recommendations in real time. The added value is to provide progressions, intensity, or volume," summarizes Àngel Miguel, one of the co-founders of Drop It.The app caught the attention at the Indescat AI Summit, where it was voted the most interesting proposal from a pitch with six start-ups from the sector. “During the menstrual cycle, women go through four phases and each requires different training. There are applications on the market that allow tracking their period and symptoms, but few adapt it to real decisions in the field of training. We are looking for personalized sessions that adapt in real-time to each woman's performance. We have created a method that takes all the user data, both those they record themselves and those provided by the most common apps. Our artificial intelligence detects patterns and gives recommendations. The objective is to generate a unique model for each woman that specifically adapts to her cycle and her symptoms,” analyzes Miguel.

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Enjoying an exceptional panoramic view and being able to glimpse, in a 360-degree turn, the Girona plain, the Medes Islands, the Montgrí massif, the Pyrenees, Montseny, the Rocacorba mountain range, and the Guilleries mountains is well worth the effort required for the now legendary Subida a los Ángeles (Ascent to the Angels), with its climb known as Matahomes and a route with a significant elevation gain of 425 meters in just 9 km. Difficulty and scenic beauty (not only that enjoyed once you reach the summit, but also that offered by the entire route, in the heart of the Les Gavarres massif, with such attractive spots as the Bishop's Fountain and the Olivet d'en Sauleda) converge in this race, which celebrates its 62nd edition this Sunday. Established in 1964 by the Gironí Excursionist and Sports Group (GEiEG), it is the oldest mountain race in the State and, despite its difficulty, each year it brings together more than five hundred participants in the three modalities: competitive, popular and inclusive, the latter for people who go in wheelchairs.

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In 1951, after a hunting trip, Sir Hugh Beaver and his friends got into a heated discussion about which game bird was the fastest. They couldn't reach a definitive conclusion because there was no book compiling an official list of this feat. As it happens, Beaver was the managing director of the Guinness brewery, and that discussion in a Wexford County pub led him to commission a book of facts and figures, initially intended as a promotional campaign for Guinness beer.

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Àngela Mora (Maials, 2004), an athlete from Club Gimnàstic FEDAC Lleida, is making history. In 2021, in Pamplona, ​​she became the first athlete with Down syndrome to participate in a Spanish National Artistic Gymnastics Championship. After her recent triumph at the Special Olympics in Oslo last September, she now plans to participate in more international competitions, such as the one to be held in Atlanta, USA, next February.

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The Unió Esportiva Sant Andreu (UESA) is a century-old sports entity that is experiencing a sweet moment. The number of members, which was less than a thousand in 2020, has grown exponentially in the last five years and there are now more than 5,000 subscribers. The closeness between the club, players, and fans is one of the reasons that attract fans of Barça or Espanyol to adopt Sant Andreu as a second team or even as their first. Initiatives such as Avisgol, a team of older people who practice so-called walking football, further strengthen the bond between the entity and its members, especially the older ones.

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In many cases, children reach adolescence with a sport under their belt. They started practicing it as children, in elementary school, and if it's a team sport, their commitment to competitions and their peers guarantee continuity during this period of change. But what about those who haven't played a team sport or regularly? If they haven't shown interest as children, it's hard for them to get hooked on a team sport at thirteen or fourteen. But this is neither impossible nor should it limit the highly recommended and necessary practice of sports. Miguel Ángel Méndez Pérez, a professor of health sciences at the UOC, is very clear about what families should keep in mind to achieve this goal.

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1. Cervera, La Segarra. Night of May 20, 1992. Roser is watching the European Cup final on television. Koeman scores the most important goal in Barça's history, and in the euphoria of the moment, the woman jumps, falls to the ground, and breaks her ankle. Despite the pain, Roser and Julià decide to celebrate that victory with gusto, and just nine months later, their son is born. Marc Márquez i Alentà is the fruit of joy and a fall. These are two of the characteristics that, over time, we have seen most often in the prodigious career of the motorcyclist. Marc is a compulsive smiler, an optimist by nature, a human being who, with this attitude, you can already guess that he will always achieve his goals. It's also true that in the last six years he has fallen off his motorcycle a hundred times and has suffered all kinds of injuries. The most serious, the crash in Jerez in the year of the pandemic. After being left like a human wreck, anyone else would have parked their bike and walked away.

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Barça is more than just a club. That's what its motto says, and that's what it tries to convey through its sections. But beyond basketball, handball, indoor soccer, and roller hockey, there are the amateur sections. One of these disciplines in which the Blaugrana team triumphs is athletics. At the last Spanish Championships, held at the beginning of August in Tarragona, the Catalan club won a total of four medals: Héctor Santos (gold in the long jump), Bernat Erta (gold in the 400 meters), Carmen Rosales (bronze in the long jump), and Pablo Sánchez-Valladares (bronze). These medals, beyond their sporting prowess, hide stories of overcoming challenges.

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"If you have the ball, the other guy doesn't have it," you said one day. "Yes, and you still play with a ball, right?" And the crowd burst into laughter. opening the lineup and Basora, César, Vila, Moreno and Manchón closing it. 1877… We wouldn't finish.

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Joan Maria Pou (Barcelona 1974) is a journalist. Since 2000, he has been reporting on FC Barcelona matches for RAC1.

She lost her mother very early. "My mother died very young, at 26, when I was seven months old. Then we went to live with my grandmother in Sant Gervasi, until I was 12."

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