Aliens among humans

The last game at the end of training ends and I would play more, but we decide to go straight into the locker room. Tomorrow we all have to work and then there’s still time for the second half of the Champions League games. We enter in the locker room and everyone of us, me first, look at the results: Barcelona 3 - Paris Saint-Germain 0.

The first thing that I think, is that those guys are inhuman, are from another planet, are fake. They are mocking us and we’re watching an Italian comedy movie, a modern day Fantozzi. But no, it’s all true. Incredulous, I let myself carry by emotions, a teammate of mine bet the 4-0 with Suarez as the first goalscorer, the dream is about to get real.

The hot water in the shower slips on my face and I think about how PSG players must feel right now. Unarmed, and yet, I think, it only takes a goal to bring the qualification home, one fucking goal. I get out from the shower, I check mi cell phone again: 3-1, Cavani. It’s over. I dress up, say hello and get out, enter in the car, turn Radio Sportiva on, which is commentating Cavani’s beautiful goal and already thinking about the quarter-finals.

The host in the studio thinks PSG could go far in the competition, that Barcelona isn't hungry anymore and that Luis Enrique can’t wait for the season to be over. I turn off. I put the last Ligabue record on, which drives me to home, and then I receive a message: “Unbelievable”.

I stop, park the car. I look at it again, but I don’t understand. I go upstairs, eat something and turn on the TV. I don’t have any cable, so Telelombardia is a blessing. I read on the screen: Barcelona 6- Paris Saint-Germain 1. I think about when I was under the shower, thinking it would only have taken one goal. But no, you can’t mess with this guys.

Now I understand what the message was about, now I understand that us, all of us, don’t understand anything. It’s not possible, I think. I try to get into Catalans’ joy and Parisians’ disappointment, sadness and discouragement. They turned the world upside down in the first leg, just for one second. Exactly, one second. Because these guys are something else.

And don’t even talk about favoritism, strange things, world sports lobbies, administrative super powers. There are not such things. There’s only one club which proved once more to be “more than a club”, made by different people, by something us humans can’t understand. And let’s be honest, we live for this. We love football, sports, these things, these miracles. Football is for us that, even if we support Paris Saint-Germain, exploded with joy at Sergi Roberto’s goal, the less protagonist of all protagonists, the most human among aliens, because football is a novel with an uncertain end.