As young children, we sincerely believed in a world of perfect communication between our parents. When mom said no to ice cream, we scurried over to our father. His first question? What did your mother say? Predictable, stable, coherent, only in the early stages of adolescence would we see hiccups in the assembly line of authority.
The central command of Real Madrid resembles your dysfunctional family, but also, more entertainingly, the command-and-control structure of the Cold War Era United States and Former Soviet Union. In a land of mixed signals, incorrect appraisals, missed messages, and pompous egoes, what can a humble madrileno do? What have we learned after all these years?
This.
Earthquakes only bother the people used to walking on stable ground. When I first moved to Managua, Nicaragua, two things stood out vividly – the searing sun and the dearth of air-conditioned buildings. As a spoiled American, what did I do? I complained. A lot. Then, I learned to sweat. Then, the heat internalized. Now, I get a cold if it drops below 85 and I wear a hoody to hospitals. For our loving and everlasting belief in the individual changing the world around him, the environment plays a part. As products of evolution, adaptability is the name of the game. And the mind is no different from the body.
The Cristiano Ronaldo-Kaka-Benzema splurge a few summers back did not surprise me. The recent Ruud Van Nistelrooy rumors barely elicited a blink. The Ozil acquisition caught me off guard – a good price for young talent? Perhaps Mou was in control, I speculated this summer. The Higuain injury, however, tossed a wrench into any such theory – Valdano loves the young Frenchman, while Mou remains unconvinced.
The signing of Adebayor presents many explanations and interpretations. Was it a Mou victory because Valdano in a sense admitted Benzema can’t always be counted on? However, oddly, after Mou said he liked Ruud and Ruud said he liked Real, the transfer fell apart. Conspiracy theories abound, but surely Real could have pushed Hamburg a bit. The neutral set of eyes is puzzled. But not me.
We could dabble in black athlete fetishism, comparing Adebayor to Drogba by claiming he has the physical “tools” but lacks the mental “strength.” Surely Mou can work wonders on the Togo striker’s mind! We could also chuckle at the irony of these two big-spending clubs arriving at a temporary thrift-store swap. Yet you can only ask yourself these types of questions so many times before the answer become the question and interrogatory symbols turn into exclamation points.
The linear scheme of life starts to bend. The end point becomes the starting point. And vice versa. You expect Madrid to scout a captain from the Colombian city of Macondo and with the last name Buendia. Also, the world at large ceases to exist. Meta and macro-analysis loses relevance. You grow indifferent to calls for reform. Is this a discarding of futile and neurotic First World expectations? Or does my cynicism short-circuit any true chance at major and lasting reforms?
At some level, I am aware that Barcelona and Real Madrid are engaged in a debt-driven duel of eventual mutually assured restruction (combo of corporate restructuring and liquidation). The Messi-gap does weigh on my spirits, though Cristiano has a good goal-to-game ratio in a white shirt. Do we need another central ballistic missile defender? Probably. Maybe. But I focus largely on the next game. Then I immediately forget it. And I start to focus on the next game.
When news broke of the Adebayor signing and the earlier Valdano-Mourinho spat, my reaction was exactly the same: I don’t really care. I care about the Copa del Rey and Sevilla. And now I don’t. The vibrations that shake the novice Madrid fan beat in sync with my heart. I stopped trying to build a house of cards in this land a long time ago. The future may not bring a better tomorrow, but I smile today. Optimistic pragmatism? That’s the best way to spin it.
A shrink might say that the collection of Real Madrid individual players that moves as a mass, a shapeless and directionless blob, is a Rorschach ink test. Against Osasuna, when Mou took off a defender and put on Adebayor alongside Benzema, I briefly flashed back to the chaotic heights of the Del Bosque era. Briefly. Therefore, perhaps I’m actually a pragmatic optimist. But I don’t dwell too much on today’s loss to Osasuna. Time pushes us forward, even when progress appears out of reach. A moment’s reflection would leave us flat on our face, that unforgiving treadmill of time!
In the world of Madrid, truth is a crime and we live on fictions. Bernd Schuster lost his job not for creating an efficient yet boring collection of champions, but for publicly admitting the obvious: his side could not beat Barcelona. Madrid’s history is best viewed after a decade, when the scars from the story of the day syndrome have healed. Even then, a glance back offers few lessons. After all, Madrid spends today to relive the glorious era of the Galacticos. Yet why stop at the early 2000′s? Why not attempt to recapture the spark of the Quinta del Buitre? Many snide journalists remark that being a coach is easy, a mere question of delegating to competent assistants. So why not just name Di Stefano coach and…
Video Credit: “Dr. Strangelove” by Stanley Kubrick