Joan Garcia, double agent (and a wounded man)

The first rumors about Joan's departure to the unmentionable coincided in the media with a news story that went unnoticed amidst the succession of daily holocausts: the discovery by the Brazilian police of a veritable factory of Russian spies in the country, elite double agents, better known as "illegals," who led perfectly normal lives for years until, at some point, they were activated for some mission.

Coincidence doesn't exist. The juxtaposition of both pieces of information didn't strike me as just a curious coincidence; it was a message. Loud and clear.

I began to imagine. I imagined Joan's presentation, the forced smiles, the training sessions, the first matches, the astonishing saves, the call-up from the national team, Ter Stegen conceding defeat, more impossible saves, Laporta's hug, the Nou Camp chanting his name, the penalty saved in the World Cup final from Mbappé himself that will deliver us our second title. Then the captaincy, the legendary armband, which Joan will earn through miracles. And his transparent smile, and his disarming naturalness as certainty, as confirmation: he's one of us, he's one of us now.

I imagined all of this as the essential and perfectly professional preparation for the appointed day: the Champions League final. For the first time, Real Madrid and the unmentionable meet in the place they never wanted to meet.

I imagine (if I'm going to imagine, I imagine whatever I want) a dense and profound match, intense to the point of exhaustion, with an unleashed Madrid that is unable to find the slightest gap in a door sealed like an Egyptian tomb by the magician of magicians, who, as if everything were just a formality, flies from here to there deflecting surface-to-air missiles with the efficiency of the Iron Dome.

I imagine that a Lamine somewhat younger than the Lamine we know, in a burst of genius and TikTok dancing, invents a goal that does not exist in known books or in books to be known and puts the score at one to zero on a scoreboard where that zero seems to be the only certainty that a confused world can cling to, because the world knows that that zero is the private property of Joan García and will remain so until Judgment Day, or the final nuclear deflagration, or the collision with the meteorite, whatever comes first.

Until the 97th minute, seconds from the final whistle, the definitive victory and the irrevocable defeat, the unmentionable concedes an absurd corner as a result of the shoving of a Madrid wounded to its very core. Modric, still playing at 50 because there has been no human way to find him a minimally functional substitute, prepares to take it. There is not the slightest concern in the world, because Joan is under the goalposts of the Portal of Glory.

The immortal Croatian continues to have good footwork, the ball flies to the indicated place, the height and gallantry of Huijsen, the new Sergio Ramos, emerges, connecting with a reasonable but insufficient header, which heads into the granite hands of the saint of Sallent.

That is precisely the moment the double agent has been waiting for so many years. All the effort of permanent imposture, of that artificial life lived with a bastard and irreproachable authenticity, the agony of being what you are not, even in breathing, even in the evacuation of minor and major waters, even in tears, is justified in this sacred instant. Joan, frozen in midair, reviews his life in a shimmering succession of images up to the unequivocal moment of the kiss to the shield the day he saved us from the eternal flames.

His hands fold in a grotesque gesture made of butter and revenge. And the goal is added to the scoreboard, triggering an extra time that I don't need to describe to you.

This, obviously, isn't going to happen. It's just the relief of a wounded man. Joan's professionalism is beyond reproach. His feelings cannot overrule his profession. They're just my imagination, aren't they?

Toni Segarra is a publicist