BarcelonaFootball can be cruel at times. It is also beautiful. And it can be both at the same time, as is happening now that everyone is falling in love with Xavi Espart just as Marc Casadó is leaving. At the same moment, a young man from La Masia is making his dream come true and another discovers that perhaps the dream is ending. And he will have to make a living far from Camp Nou.
It is sad to see a player like Casadó sad. It is sad that he does not have a place in the first team. But if it were Deco or Flick, they would surely have reached the same conclusion. Barça plays like angels and wins without Marc, a player who always gives his all. If it breaks our hearts that he is leaving, it is because he is different, not so much in the way he plays, but in the way he loves. That a Barça player has the idea of going to Canaletes with friends and causing madness when a league is won says a lot about him.the idea of going to Canaletes with friends and causing madness when a league is won says a lot about him. With Casadó, it was clear to you that he was one of those cases where a fan manages to play for the club they love. Seeing how he lived it moved us because we need to think that football is not just a business. We need beautiful stories with happy endings, we need players who make decisions without always prioritizing money, we need to know that some players love the jersey as much as we do, even if they are few.
We need to see images like Pablo García, the player who has left Betis crying like a child because he wanted to stay defending the colors he loves. And they have sent him to Santander because the sporting direction prioritizes Ceballos. In a football that is increasingly becoming a business that moves shameful amounts of money, details like these are moving. Market closings have become a vanity fair, transforming the last day where you can sign into a grotesque spectacle where players are bought and sold as if it were a fish auction. With representatives trying to move players by any means to make money, often without thinking if they will be happy where they are sent. As in North American sports, it increasingly seems that the player has less power to decide what will become of him.
And so dreams end. But others can be born. Casadó arrives at a club that does things well; with a Catalan technical staff with people like the coach, Antonio Hidalgo, who as a young man also dreamed of succeeding at Camp Nou and had to leave. And he discovered that you can enjoy football and be loved elsewhere. I have no doubt that he will be loved in La Coruña, Marc. May he listen to Hidalgo's advice and be happy. He deserves it.