The legacy of this champion Barça already reaches impossible places. The Rwenzori Mountains, on the border of Uganda and Congo, is one of the most remote places in Africa. It is not easy to get there: to reach its peaks, with summits over five thousand meters, you have to cross for several days forests, jungles, bamboo walls, and black mud swamps dotted with endemic vegetation, unique on the planet. Barely a thousand people climb its peaks each year, far from the 50,000 who visit Kilimanjaro in neighboring Tanzania, and its slopes still hold impossible secrets. It is a place so far from the world that the Rwenzori leopard lives in its forests, a shy animal whose tracks and shadows have been seen, but which has never been recorded or photographed. Never.
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In that remote place, the huge victory of Barça yesterday was also celebrated.
The blaugrana players have reached the hearts of tens of thousands of culés around the world
A few days ago, when I was visiting that vertical paradise, I met Gilbert Kule, son of hunters and above all the most culé of all the guides working in that lost corner of the world. Upon learning of our shared love, we celebrated together the men’s Barça League and lamented the Champions elimination against Atlético, but then Gilbert proudly retorted: “Well, the girls will win it,” he predicted.
In 25 years as a correspondent in Africa, I have witnessed how, little by little, the successes of Barça women’s team filter through the continent among African blaugrana fans with a mix of pride and happiness. It usually happened in cities, with well-connected friends, but Gilbert’s pride for the Barça women’s team in the Rwenzori points to a new horizon. I would never have imagined that one day I would find myself in a rural and remote area of the Congolese border with a Ugandan boy in love with the play of Alexia, Salma, Aitana, Pajor, Paredes, or Mapi León.
That is the legacy of this eternal Barça, which yesterday brilliantly won the club’s fourth Champions. The legend of this team, capable of wiping off the map in a final a great team like Lyonnes, has for years conquered the world and enamored culés anywhere on the planet.
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Yesterday Barça was a moving team that completely removed the thorn of Lisbon and responded with emotions. Because it was thrilling to see Cata Coll’s superb performance to hold the team when doubts were mounting, in a brilliant match that recalled Valdés’s display against Arsenal 20 years ago, or the cunning of Pajor or Salma who destroyed the French team in a wonderful second half, which translated on the pitch Cruyff’s “go out and enjoy.”
And it was also moving because the perfect final closes with a well-deserved golden clasp the career at the club of players who will always be eternal like Mapi León or, possibly, Alexia Putellas.
I don’t know if the blaugrana eleven lifted a Champions with Barça for the last time yesterday, but in these years of success they have achieved something extremely valuable: to open the way. Yesterday hundreds of thousands more girls lifted the cup with them.
That is their heritage and the legacy of this Barça of emotions: having reached where it seemed impossible. To some lost mountains in Africa or to the hearts of tens of thousands of culés around the world. Eternal thanks.
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