On the repetition of the unique and Heart of Darkness
The main problem a reviewer faces when reporting on Real Madrid’s new exploit is avoiding duplication. The blessed problem of turning the exceptional into the ordinary is how to maintain the extraordinary status of what has become routine. It seems that everything has already been written, and there is a temptation to succumb to the temptation of self-citation, more out of inability than from boasting. Haven’t we already said that the story of Madrid is the greatest ever told? Haven’t we already explained that Madrid is the club with the most literary character of all? Haven’t we already given specific reasons to support the previous statement? Namely, the staggering accumulation of epic sequences, the crucial importance of supporting characters at crucial moments, and the irreversible tendency of all endings, often happy ones, to remain open because there is always a challenge later. What do you want me to tell you? Philosophers with less structured doctrines than this infiltrated the school canon. Wasn’t that night fulfilled once again, completely and completely?
The blessed problem of turning the exceptional into the ordinary is how to maintain the extraordinary status of what has become routine.
However, the reviewer is always required to complete his or her page. Therefore, it is advisable to arm yourself with a magnifying glass and carefully examine the details, thus trying to find new elements in parmen paradigm. While this mission may seem impossible at first glance, it is never completely impossible. It is not for nothing that Madrid usually presents us, no matter how bizarre it may seem, with an eternal and “even more difficult” circus, even in those aspects that are reproduced to the point of exhaustion. For example: while European comebacks, the club’s true calling card, have been achieved in every imaginable way throughout the countless play-off rounds of the club’s history, in Manchester we were shown that there was still room for ingenuity. Madrid made up for what they were missing… penalties! At the same time, sublimating to the extreme the aforementioned tendency of minor players to take center stage at the decisive moment. This time there were four of them: Lucas Vazquez, Nacho Fernandez, Antonio Rüdiger and, above all, the cautious figure Andrei Lunin.
On the other hand, to reach this point, the team had to survive a bombardment, the scale of which was itself another novelty. No doubt the most seasoned fans could mention a list of episodes also characterized by extreme suffering – most of which took place in stadiums in Germany, Lombardy or Yugoslavia, as if Madrid’s European dominance was to be built against the Austro-Hungarian Empire. — but what happened at the Etihad makes a significant difference. In all previous situations where Madrid was defeated, there was always room for some kind of response, even if it was impotent or even pathetic. A tip, a gesture, a symbolic right to strike. The second half in Manchester did not allow this. City emerged as a machine without feelings, tactically, technically and physically implausible; perhaps not very strong in the last section for such abundance, but inflexible in its oppressive desire. Madrid’s main merit was that he did not fall into the supposed madness from which the suffocated, deprived of all hope, suffer. Off the pitch, crouched in front of the television, Madrid fans felt in the flesh the despair that Conrad was able to express in a paragraph from his dark heart:
“I fought death hand in hand. This is the least stimulating competition you can imagine. It takes place in an intangible greyness, with nothing underfoot, without anything around, without spectators, without noise, without glory, without a great desire for victory, without a great fear of defeat, in a painful atmosphere of sluggish skepticism, without too much faith in one’s rights and even less to the rights of the enemy. If this is the form of the highest wisdom, life is a greater mystery than any of us can imagine.»
And despite everything, it was not enough. Madrid survived and won. As usual, antis will appropriate Unamuno without reading it, only to shamelessly use his most famous catchphrase – at this point, I suspect many are thinking that what Don Miguel said in Salamanca before “You will win, but you will not convince”it was just like that “Madrid doesn’t play anything” —. After all, there are areas of reality and sectors of opinion so narrow that even the most experienced observer will not be able to find anything new that would give them a minimum of sophistication. In any case, it is advisable to show them a little compassion. Imagine for a moment condemning the need to observe from this position the daily repetition of the unique.
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