This Saturday morning, the people from the magazine Panenka, which would be the The New Yorker of football, invited me to a talk. I accepted because talking about football is always good and for the posturing of performing at the Panenka Fest, which would be the Primavera Sound for football geeks, with the difference that tickets here cost 6 euros, and the talks are indoors, in case it rains. Boys, don’t cry.
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Until yesterday, I didn’t find out the topic of the talk: the World Cup and geopolitics. Oh my, those with eternal hatred for modern football. The lecture we’re going to give everyone. Whether it’s the Iranian national team, or Trump hogging all the limelight, or Infantino, the owner of the business, licking the boots of the Naranjito of populism, the Andoni Goikoetxea of peace, retro references for the taste of the Panenka reader.
I’ve been studying the topic all night. And the only thing that occurs to me geopolitically is that if Spain wins the World Cup, Lamine Yamal should lift the cup, which Trump will surely end up presenting, wearing a Palestinian flag as if it were a Superman cape. Can you imagine the photo, right? What a shame that political positioning is not very common in the world of football, because this World Cup would offer a lot of opportunities. Footballers celebrating a goal by lifting their shirt to reveal “No to war”, “Fuck ICE” or “Ayatollah don’t touch my dick”.
I thought the talk would be lighter and that we would discuss the topic that occupies and worries Spain these days. The elections for the presidency of Real Madrid. Yes, yes, those that began to be called a few weeks ago with a press conference by an unleashed Florentino Pérez, showing live and direct the human weaknesses of a superior being. We all took it for granted that Florentinian democracy would triumph again and that, therefore, no elections would be held.
Nobody gives a damn for Riquelme, but early elections are the devil’s work
But no. A rival appeared with the surname of a former Barça footballer, Riquelme. And most of us bet that he wouldn’t even present the endorsements to run in the elections. I don’t know where he got so much money, but he presented them. And from then on, a couple of frantic weeks to come back from a result that, according to the ‘merengue’ legend, only a Real Madrid fan can overcome.
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Florentino, following the logic of modern democracies, decided not to hold any electoral debate, the most blatant tactic when one feels like a winner without even stepping onto the field, very much like Real Madrid in the last two seasons.
Meanwhile, Riquelme didn’t say no to anything. He has little to lose. His media appearances have turned him overnight into one of the most well-known men in the country. Nothing like it had been seen since María José Galera, the first evicted from Big Brother 1. With a stellar last week: presenting Haaland on El hormiguero, while Florentino answered Iker Jiménez with great difficulty.
And he still has today and tomorrow. He still has time to appear in Bad Bunny’s Puerto Rican little house or take a selfie with the Pope. Nobody gives a damn for Riquelme. But early elections are always the devil’s work. Just ask the four regional presidents of the PP who bought into the national priority thing like someone buying Dr. Martens with steel toes. Florentino has everything in his favor. The ball on the penalty spot. He wants to show off and shoot down the middle, softly, hoping that goalkeeper Riquelme stretches towards the posts and scores the goal. But he runs the risk that the goalkeeper stays put in the center and saves the ball without much difficulty. It would be an unexpected end for a powerful being. Panenka style, they call it.
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