Kylian Mbappé celebrates France’s second goal with Olivier Giroud DYLAN MARTINEZ (Portal)
Dear Martin:
While your emotions race through the field, mine do the gymnastics of those waiting for an opportunity. I envy the exhaustion you feel when you see yours. I’ve lost the right to complain about mine! Traditionally, the Mexicans’ orphanage started in game four; now we don’t even get to that stage. “What to do?” the Soviet coach would say.
Since Brazil won the cup in Mexico in 1970, our plan B has been to support the Canarinha. “Green feeds on yellow,” wrote Carlos Pellicer. The poet was referring to nature’s colorful changes, but perhaps anticipating our fickle passion for t-shirts.
I like Brazil but I don’t see it as my team. In fact, I’ve gotten into a fan-questionable state: impartiality. Can football only be a show? While you submit to a nerve guerrilla, I’ll soak my heart in warm water. I long for suffering, the highest form of love in a country where there is nothing more romantic than singing “Today I Want to Celebrate My Pain”.
I speak not only for myself, but for the millions of fans without reason. With the kick-off, I assume the grim neutrality of an ombudsman. But I can’t hold that position: I start to celebrate Portugal’s touch and end up elated by South Korea’s remarkable win. I am in danger of objectivity!
He made his debut in the round of 16 with a simple analysis: Poland went to Qatar to relieve boredom. He may have had outbursts against France in the first half and final minutes, but he pointed out the worst that football is a team sport and infected the fearsome Lewandowski with apathy, who did nothing more conspicuous at the World Cup than missed two penalties (luckily one of them repeated). For their part, France returned to show champion fiber. Griezmann delivered an imperial game, recovering balls throughout the field and delivering passes with high trigonometry, Dembelé corrected his addiction to missing the last game, Giroud patrolled the zone where he could score with a rebound on the nose and Mbappe was a genius. How to describe it? If Romario and Ronaldo were dead, the riddle would have a complicated but more or less logical solution: two Brazilian souls would have merged into a single body. Since these retirees are still alive, the long-awaited paranormal explanation is difficult. At 24, Mbappé combines skill and strength in an unprecedented way. Ronaldo was the idol that adorned his childhood bedroom; He absorbed the virtues of The Phenomenon and added the unsettling grace of Romario, capable of deceiving an opponent with his shoulder.
In previous letters we have criticized VAR’s artificial justice. Football improves on referee mistakes that get our anger. This martyr offers his mother’s honor to the Global Village for consideration. But there are clinical cases where the whistler is compulsively wrong. Venezuelan Jesús Valenzuela did not give Mbappé a clear penalty for an alleged previous misplacement that was unseen with the naked eye and not checked by the VAR. Another controversial game occurred when Szczesny, with all his consonants, left the small area and collided with Frenchman Varane; The game was clean but the keeper didn’t get up and the referee stopped the shot, disallowing Giroud’s later scissor goal. Every time a goalie accidentally crashes in the big area, should the action stop? The third offense came in a drop where Mbappé surpassed his marker; He walked up to the goalkeeper alone when his shirt was pulled. Valenzuela saw nothing.
Human error is also a question of dose. VAR is as uncomfortable as injections. I’d rather it didn’t exist, but why wasn’t it used in any of these cases when it is there?
France plays against England, who beat Senegal.
The Premier League is the British Museum on the move: a display of foreign treasures. 99 footballers from this league are in Qatar. Among them the English take the modest place that the Druids take among the British. They don’t stand out much, but they pull the sword out of the stone.
Unlike eloquent France, England hides its threats. It should be remembered that five o’clock tea perfected the art of poisoning and that rose bushes thrive so well in the novels of this country because there is a corpse beneath them.
The complete correspondence of Caparrós and Villoro during the World Cup in Qatar
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