Barça is playing Cultural Leonesa right now. The team looks to be the second stringers. No Ibra, Messi, or Henry. The goalie is the dude with the long hair that's braided. What is weirdest of all, is the absence of Carles Puyol. The ever-mean mugging team captain is not on the field.
They've already scored thanks to a goal from Pedro, but my heart isn't in it. Who are these guys?
They don't play with the hypnotic strategy of my team. They don't carry the weight like the starters.
These guys look intimidated of being burned by the torch their carrying. The flame that said "fuck you" to the Franco regime. Rather than rightful heirs to their team's glory, they seem to be knowingly temporary custodians. That's cool. If anything I would rather hang out with these dudes than the superstars. But to watch the game, I need the drama that is accessible only to the most ego-driven.
On a similar note, Real Madrid got de-pantsed by a small club, 4-nil yesterday. They were without the benefit of their two biggest stars, Ronaldo and Kaka. For any Barça fan, this inspires the sweetest Schadenfreude. Their shoddy performance against a Bad News Bears team is like the proverbial stone being thrown at the brass statue with feet of clay. They spent hundreds of millions in the last summer to create a sensational team that would get spanked by some minimum wage players. Happy Happy, Joy Joy!
At least there was some drama in their defenestration (for the record, a Defenestration takes place when a team loses 4-nil). The fabulous hubris of the team--of Franco's team--made their humiliation exciting.
But Barça is winning this game prosaically, and there seems to be little distinguishing this game from any of the others that have already been played today. Almost surely, they'll win, but it will be without the sneaky master-play that I've come to expect from my side. For a solitary dude nine time-zones away, it doesn't feel much like victory.
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