The Santiago Bernabeu, from laughter to desertion
The only project that Real Madrid know is on the scoreboard. It doesn’t understand caveats. If you win, good, if you lose, bad. It doesn’t matter how the team played, or if the fans had fun, because the only thing that matters is winning. As if scoring more goals than the rival was not a consequence of the game, but the game in itself. That’s why when Barcelona insist that the best way of winning is their particular way of understanding football, not only do they not understand but they laugh at it, caricaturing what they despise. Until Xavi arrives, like Cruyff, Rijkaard, Guardiola or Luis Enrique before him, and wakes them up from their collective anesthesia with a landslide victory.
They were warned but they didn’t see it coming. They criticised and laughed at how Barcelona celebrated a moral victory in the Spanish Super Cup, of how Laporta presented Xavi and of the euphoric reaction of the squad after scoring four goals in Napoli. If they didn’t live in a bubble, they would have seen Gavi coming. That wasn’t a bluff. They would not have talked about Adama as a sub for Trincao or Aubameyang as an ex-footballer. Nor would they have said it was Sterling who was good and not Ferran Torres. And above all, they would not have lacked respect for Xavi, laughing at his career as a coach. Barcelona have what Madrid stopped having decades ago, an idea. Ideas move the world and change history. Wins, without knowing how they arrive, don’t serve for anything.
The best image of the 4-0 was seeing many fans walk away from the Santiago Bernabeu, unable to handle their reality check. Chamartin stood to applaud Ronaldinho in 2005 in a game that finished 3-0 and Real Madrid fans showed their condescension because they did not know what was coming. On Sunday there was no applause, but desertions. Because now they know their worst nightmare has returned.
