Like every summer, Barcelona fans face the new season with renewed hopes. In August, the dance of names in the sports press has been going on for a couple of months (if we ended up signing all the names that come up, we could fill the north goal), and it's a moment of euphoria, of turning the page on last season's disappointment and dreaming that this year, yes, this year we will win the treble. At Can Barça, preseason is also the time to check if the pyrotechnics we paid a fortune for will work or will again be a damp squib, and if the new forwards will be able to understand Lionel Messi, Our Lord.
The journalist Jordi Puntí, in his book Todo Messi, proposes an interesting hypothesis: he assures that Barça's number 10 is like an Aztec god who, to function and guarantee us a good harvest, demands the head of a forward every year. Looking back at history, we see that the theory is confirmed, with Eto'o (who leaves in 2009), Ibrahimovic (2010), Bojan (2011), David Villa (2013), Alexis Sánchez (2014), Pedro (2015) and Munir (2017) among the list of the sacrificed.
Puntí's book Todo Messi, subtitled "style exercises," is the -literary- confirmation that Messi is much more than a player, an obvious fact that has been repeated many times, but one that deserved someone to stop and think deeply about. For the author of Maletas perdidas, Messi would be closer to dream creators like Walt Disney or the architect Frank Gehry than to Goikoetxea or Begiristain, to understand each other. Upon realizing this, Puntí decided to pay homage to the star-artist, and began to look at Messi from various perspectives, concluding that Messi's figure is bomb-proof, and that the number 10 admits all kinds of metaphors and approaches. Against those who say that the Argentine "exhausts all adjectives," Puntí claims that the opposite is true, since Messi has forced us to create language like few others. Hence, on the Internet, you can easily find information about "the Messi of pizzas" (in Sabadell) or "the Messi of scissors" (the latter referred to a Russian hairdresser who drew him on the back of your head)
As with all drugs, Messi's withdrawal syndrome will be dangerous. The day that culés stop counting the years with BC and AD to do it with BM and AM (before and after Messi) the slump will comePuntí makes all kinds of dribbles and filigrees, forcing and stretching the myth of the Argentine, from analyzing his debut in the Barça first team, at 16 years, 4 months and 23 days old, to reviewing videos of a five-year-old Messi who already had the ball glued to his feet, just like now. And we will also read the endearing confession of the writer, who, as a teenager, called Maradona's house (in those days the phone number must have been in the directory). Diego Armando didn't answer, but a 15-year-old Puntí was able to speak with the myth's girlfriend and convey his encouragement after a defeat. As with all drugs, Messi's withdrawal syndrome will be dangerous. The day we culés stop counting years with BC and AD to do it with BM and AM (before and after Messi) the slump will come. Veteran Barcelona fans, heck, won't suffer much: going back to "not this year either" will be bearable for them, but for the youth who discovered football with Messi (and who Puntí reminds us have also grown up with Harry Potter, and are therefore accustomed to magic and happy endings), for this generation accustomed to titles and brilliant plays, returning to decades of mediocrity may be difficult to overcome. In the eighties, the murder of Bambi's mother traumatized an entire generation, which as adults embraced environmentalism en masse. What will today's youth become when Messi hangs up his jersey?
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