It takes a whole life to find the meaning of life; It only takes a second to make no sense of anything. In just three days we have witnessed how human beings can turn a party into an embarrassment. Although those who commit such misdeeds have few traces of humanity. On Thursday, the Athletic radicals launched a flare towards the stands where the Roma fans were, of all ages, nationalities and conditions. This Sunday, in a derby that was being exemplary in behavior, the same people as always, those who hide behind extremes to justify any atrocity, spoiled the show by throwing lighters, water bottles and other unidentified objects towards Courtois. It happened after Militao’s goal and everything burned. It is very easy to live being a fool, as Dostoevsky wrote.
From that moment on, the protocol was activated. It was done at the request of a referee, Busquets Ferrerwho appeared at the Metropolitano with suspicions among his colleagues due to his lack of experience in this type of volcanic confrontations, but who showed that it is not necessary to boast of having been in Vietnam to know how to act in situations of tension, limits. On two occasions the stadium’s public address system warned to stop throwing objects onto the field, in an attempt to make those who do not know or do not want to reconsider. It was all in vain because everything depends on education. Busquets Ferrer, after speaking with the two coaches, used both courage and sanity, stopped the match and sent the teams to the locker room.
In total there were 15 minutes with the grass empty, an image that framed an embarrassment. The grass cleared, without a soul, while Simeone, Giménez and Koke negotiated with that surplus bench in football, that group of unpresentable people that stains both the letters of the sport and their own club and those players they encourage. The conversation was sad and the picture was nauseating.
Especially because the derby was being friendly. From the arrival of the Madrid bus until minute 22 of the second half. Gallagher shook hands with Vinicius after a shot from the Brazilian, himself come He hugged Le Normand after a foul, strong but noble legs. Everyone focused on the ball, no one on the noise. However, when the woodworm is installed, in the blink of an eye the table legs fall apart, rotting.
And at Atlético, the problem is rooted in one of the stadium’s backs. To the shame of the rest. The club must get involved there, not hide behind the fact that “there are no racists or anti-racists here.” If there is zero tolerance, as Enrique Cerezo assured before the match, it must be applied. Words, like promises, float. And in this matter there is no need to have doubts or justify, much less sow arguments for the future. As did Simeone, who skated, almost ensuring that the Belgian incited that part of the fans with his celebration. “We don’t help when we charge people, we provoke and people get angry. “People have no other way to do it, in a bad way, yes, it’s not good, but… (…) You can celebrate, but not in the stands,” he pointed out.
No, Cholo, it would be another mistake to focus on the goalkeeper, whistled and insulted after his signing for Madrid, and not on these aggressors.
You must be relentless. In actions and gestures. That’s why The worst was the end, the last frame, when the entire Atlético team, after achieving the tie, went to that same background to applaud. To applaud what? That photograph, the squad celebrating in communion with the guilty, is undignified and that is how part of the fans understood it, who got fed up and whistled.. What do they mean going there with those who fired the lighters, with the radicals? The permissiveness of the club with these people is evident. If Madrid and Barça have disinfected their sewers, we will have to look at the leather armchairs of the Metropolitano to ask for explanations. They must be fired without excuses or consideration.
That said, I think that the image of the desert that the Metropolitano pitch became for 15 minutes had a point of relief for the image of our football. That in Spain a show that has rarely stopped, no matter how many insults, racist attacks or unpleasant incidents it has suffered, stops is a consolation. Because to Sometimes pathos serves to change the course. All it takes is that all parties want to. And that in the next game there will be no masks.
