It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a child hairstyle the way the child Andrés Iniesta did. Or perhaps we should say how his mother combed his hair, since it is not entirely clear from what age we children begin to feel remotely adults and make truly important decisions such as the shoes to wear, the length of the pants or the shaving of certain parts. shades. Youth fashions seem to be going in other directions these days. And although immense talents continue to emerge under the stones, nothing seems as casual and innocent as when children who wanted to be soccer players parted themselves in the middle—or let them do so—and jumped onto the field fearing the sky, that is to say: crossing themselves. .
The goodbye of Andrés Iniesta leaves orphaned an entire generation that understood football as a competition without goals, the dictatorship of possession, where one grabbed the ball and began to shoot no matter where or how it all ended. We called this football founded on the most absolute hubbub the rebollizo and it served to motivate the good guys and get those who only wanted to run after the ball off the field – or rather off the road, since the fields require a certain budget. because there were not many alternatives. It’s not hard to imagine the seven or eight-year-old Iniesta hogging the ball under the cover of a smile while his teammates trot beside him, seriously thinking about even trying: that’s how he also played when he was already a world star.
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Curiously, the boy who seemed to express himself as if goals did not exist became a goalscorer noted by history. First at Stamford Bridge, giving some justice to a tie in which Barça was better than Chelsea, endured its share of refereeing injustices with less propaganda and fuss than the English – or the not so English – and ended up winning with that big shot of Iniesta that caused unusual scenes throughout the planet. Then would come the final in South Africa, the outcome of an entire World Cup with the uncertainty that extra time implies, the scoring of goals, the hand-painted shirt to remember the absent friend, the patriotic madness and the Waka Waka as the new national anthem .
One day we discovered that Iniesta was also losing his hair. Nothing sudden, since it had already been evident for some time. But the same thing happens with devoted fans as with cows when they see the train passing in the distance: they do not always distinguish, or we distinguish, progress from routine. The time of forbidden toys was running out for a generation that every so often turned its eyes towards the East to ensure that Iniesta continued playing, it did not matter whether in Japan or Pakistan, almost as an insurance of continuity against the insurmountable catastrophes of age. .
“They have the advantage that, when they look at each other, they look directly into each other’s eyes,” said Cruyff in a talk with Valdano to refer to the importance that Iniesta and Xavi had in Leo Messi’s game. Due to size, Flaco joked, but even more so due to style and conception. A good friend of mine, also skinny, but a Real Madrid fan, gave them the perfect nickname in those days, the Messiniistas, just the type of skinny footballer who banished the law of the strongest from the fields. And also the one who made us empathize with a new type of bully, with that boy with his First Communion hairstyle who understood professional football as if he had given birth to it himself in Fuentealbilla, Albacete.