Major show with an asterisk

From time to time, you get matches like this. You collect your accreditation with a routine gesture without having any idea of ​​what awaits you. You have arrived earlier than usual because a Barça-Atletico match usually foreshadows greatness and you think that getting into your position earlier will facilitate inspiration. In the preliminaries, any little thing usually counts. Suddenly, with the computer already connected, the match passes you by and demands that you only write about it. Everything is meat. Nothing is superfluous. What excitement.

Five minutes in, Atlético took the lead twice. After 20, Barça equalised. After 30, you saw Frenkie de Jong put his leg in like the little bull Zuviría would do, a revelation that joins the exciting aftertaste left by the image of Cubarsi running through half the pitch kissing the crest with a happy face. In fact, the centre-back, who has just scored his first goal in the colours he loves, is feeling it. In the stadium, all the Barcelona fans share it. The atmosphere becomes unique. There is a feeling of collective trance that makes any play possible. The flow of play is such that it brings back memories of previous glorious Barças. Iñigo Martínez closes the show momentarily with an old-fashioned goal from a corner. That's what Basque centre-backs have always done and Flick is German, so the aerial game is once again good for the Blaugrana team.

The work is so dense that it requires that four-hour break typical of an old movie ('The Brutalist', by the way, has recovered this nice custom): the pause is required to rest from the emotions experienced and those that are coming.

Climax A feeling of collective trance is produced that makes any play possible.

The second half is once again turning stomachs, hearts and heads. Barça dances to Pedri's tune and scores another, but the two-goal lead is not enough for an Atlético that does not seem to belong to Simeone but to his ambitious cousin, who apparently lives inside him. The match ends 4-4, an atypical result like the experience lived. The Atlético players leave euphoric and the Blaugrana, frustrated, but the perception of a unique night for the cup floats in the air. And the worm that will become a snake in the days passes appears because there will be a return match.

To be or not to be... optimistic

At this point, one doesn't know what to do. I have always distrusted radical optimists almost as much as clingy agonies. When during Covid people said that "the pandemic will make us better" I bit my tongue so as not to spoil the mood of those unbearable enthusiasts. With Barça, it will be the years, the same thing happens to me. It is obvious that Barça inspires, I personally have jumped on the bandwagon of hope, but I was annoyed by those who minutes after the Champions League draw put the champagne in the fridge or boasted of booking a hotel in Munich, the venue of the final, more than anything because it has been almost ten years since we lifted the European Cup. Choosing to contain the euphoria is showing respect for the rivals but above all for what has been suffered in recent seasons. Remembering the hardships, and not hiding them as if they had never existed, gives more value to future successes, because it highlights that the return to the path of joy has cost effort and has involved the convergence of many elements that are not at all arbitrary. We should never declare victory before achieving it. Last night's game, as wonderful as it was instructive, is worth it.