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n inspiring article by Daniel Gamper raised, a few weeks ago, the existence of a football pleasure linked to the contemplation of good play. A kind of continuous happiness, which would not necessarily culminate in scoring. With absolute justice, he pointed to Messi as the supreme architect and paradigm of a total player, for his ability to mobilize all elements and even overcome the whims of fortune. Faith in his game is made explicit with glorious redundancy through the allusion to his holy person as "Messiah" -given the symptomatic, improbably casual homophony- and using the number on his back as vowels of the word with which he refers to divinity (D10S). Ironies of life, it is well known that the name of the figure who has tried to overshadow him -with whom he has shared the dubiously golden trophy for a decade- is almost synonymous, which overabounds in the antithesis of the characters they represent.
Cristiano Ronaldo is essentially a finisher, a player who seems to play for himself, as he is basically happy when he scores, and applauds his teammates' goals little (or not at all). His celebrations, on the other hand, are explosive and -for many- a source of provocation. The truth is that they usually display a body cultivated conscientiously, which proudly knows itself to be the center of attention for half the world, not just the footballing one. If, from the point of view of philosophical aesthetics, we have read in Gamper's text that the spectacle Messi creates gives much to think about, from the point of view of theatrical or even cinematographic narrative -so susceptible to mythomania- the figure of the misunderstood gunslinger fits even more ideally with Cristiano Ronaldo's persona. In the confrontation between the two, there is an unbearable paradox for the goal specialist: of the 9 years they coexisted in the Spanish league, 5 of them the Argentine ended with better records.
REVERSES OF FORTUNE
The topical comparison with Western duels is not only due to the metaphorical shot. The goal scorer is the avenger who is sensed, however, outside the law. He wants to fulfill his mandate above all else, even earning the incomprehension of his peers and close ones. He has acknowledged it in an interview, this season, Luis Suárez, another excessive gladiator, with a rhetorical question: "What striker is not selfish?". In reality, the Manichaean version of the world, so akin to the Hollywood worldview, does not properly illustrate the situation. One could say there are good guys, bad guys, and avengers. For the first to be a victim of his memorable and legitimate mission -scoring goals- is he who monopolizes the spotlight, and puts himself in the very foreground, very close to the gods. He approaches glory, like an Icarus puffed up by his efficiency, spreading his wings over the sea of possible errors that will condemn him, even if he doesn't know it yet.
Installed in the vanity of the predator, antipathies towards Cristiano Ronaldo's person are still the order of the day, either in the form of envy -for being "handsome and rich," according to his words- or for a disconnection from common reality, which at times can seem almost absolute, by showing little camaraderie or solidarity. Gary Lineker, on his very active Twitter account, recently gave him a new jab. And yet, someone might ask, what fault does Cristiano have if a small plane carrying a colleague goes missing in the ocean precisely on the same day that, after appearing before the judge dressed as one who is to parade down the red carpet -being condemned to pay close to 20 million euros-, he decides to take a selfie on his luxurious plane?
Flying can be beautiful, but wings are always borrowed. Identifying with the primary cause of reality is an evil from which no one is completely protected, much less those who think they know the most.The lack of perspective regarding one's own centrality in the world, as well as the lack of empathy towards the other -identification with their state, however different it may seem- does not represent a defect exclusive to some professions. No one is immune to the possibility of suffering an ego attack, or of remaining stuck in the absolute sameness of a child for longer than expected. Even the most educated individuals, specialists in a particular art, can suffer from both ailments, as Socrates had striven to demonstrate to corroborate or disprove the strange assertion of the oracle. The problem, nowadays, lies in the fact that those who benefit most from access to information and the business of social networks, as protagonists of an exponentially lucrative "spectacle," are dazzling due to their profound ignorance of the fragility that makes their sustenance possible.
Flying can be beautiful, but wings are always borrowed. Identifying with the first cause of reality and the necessary order of things, which the Greeks called ananké, is an evil from which -as we said- no one is completely free, much less those who believe they know the most. Matchpoint, surely the best film Woody Allen made in recent decades, shows how even "good luck" can lead to a pernicious deification. The exceptionality of the tennis ball that hits the top of the net and falls inexplicably on the other side -favoring the player, even if they don't deserve it- would seem to place the individual in a kind of "moral state of exception." But far from benefiting them -according to worldly interests- what it does is build the bridge towards that deification, and with it towards possible internal corruption. This same idea had already been raised by Boethius, "last of the Romans and first of the Scholastics," in his Consolation of Philosophy, an unquestionable best-seller during the Middle Ages.
Certainly, thinking of the ancients we can remember the Latin motto that said that fortune favors "those who dare" (Audentes fortuna iuvat, in Book X of Virgil's Aeneid), and that Daniel Gamper seemed to allude to when referring to the confidence that emanates from Messi's actions: "an immutable faith that, if he gives himself, destiny will favor him." But in the case of the Portuguese, that sentence is obscured by the Cainite suspicion -a very uncomfortable whisper- of knowing himself to be the "second most favored." An unbearable truth, which he tries to liquidate by various means. Thus, the guttural roar -after the jump and turn, never losing sight of the camera's location- seeks to accredit the pragmatically primitive dimension of his own affirmation as a winner, even in its digital replication. A confirmation of duty fulfilled that eventually culminates in the self-evident gesture of "I am here." And, nevertheless, in the excessive will to show himself very comfortable with himself, the profound meaning of Boethius's intuition is validated: that fortune tends to hide the meaning of true happiness.
HISTRIONICS AS A TANGENT
Those gestures are redundant and theatrical, inevitably histrionic. And, yet, also symptomatic, for they reveal how hard it is to be subjected to the tyranny of numbers. Both with regard to the number of goals scored and the burden of being "second." Nothing to do, no pity to feel -one might think- bearing in mind the situation of most workers. It may be difficult to feel empathy for a specimen of this kind -if we think precisely of the numbers they handle, of their economic possibilities- but there is a truth that tortures every human being, and especially one who is at the epicenter of accounting responsibility, however little he thinks about it. And that is that the task of the scorer, the maximum aspiration of the efficient, skillful worker, cannot compete with the disinterested and "great" beauty of the artist ("È così triste essere bravi: si rischia di diventare abili," says Jep Gambardella to his Milanese friend after making love).
The mythical narrative that is often brought up is that of a Narcissus in love with himself: an individual turned into a character, who drowns because of his pristine and fatally attractive representation.On the other hand, getting lost in the recounting of what one possesses only confirms the irreparable nature of the true loss, which Albert Camus' Caligula experiences exemplarily after the death of his beloved. Faced with the dissatisfaction of not being able to achieve the impossible, he decides to apply productive logic - that which seems to interest men - to its ultimate (bloody) consequences: "If the Treasury is important, then life is not". The question is what to do with that sleepless truth, how to continue with daily life when one is the most powerful among mortals without being completely a god, as happens to Hölderlin's Hyperion.
The other mythical narrative often brought up when talking about Cristiano, the most evident given the self-complacent way that prevents taking perspective, is that of a Narcissus in love with himself; an individual turned into a character before the marvelous reflection of his performance, who drowns because of that pristine and fatally attractive representation. Caligula, a paradigmatic anti-hero, does not drown, but experiences the culmination of a life of excesses -the final ecstasy, his death, as Camus' stage direction specifies- from the symbolic shattering of the mirror. The dilemma proposed in the case of the goal scorer is of course not so dramatic, although it starkly contrasts victory and defeat. An idea condensed in the Garibaldian motto "Roma o morte" and which -returning to the infantilism of being closer to the gods- translates to: "Either Caesar or nothing".
Camus's passion for football, author of that fabulous and unsettling theatrical recreation, has transcended through a phrase that, in a way, synthesizes it: "Ce que je sais de la morale, c'est au football que je le dois". As a defender of social rights, he always believed in collective play, in the equitable distribution of tasks, responsibilities, and benefits within the same team. In this sense, Joaquín DHoldan recalls in his book Genios del Fútbol that Camus wanted to be a midfielder. Unable to "make plays" because he had broken his shoes - he explains - he had to settle for being a goalkeeper. Certainly far from the democratizing task, but the antithesis of the goal scorer's figure: the ultimate defender, face to face with that fast and determined individual, unyielding in his personal quest for glory, who gladly looks at himself in the mirror of the feat that will elevate him and perhaps even make him immortal.
We will not now discover the affective sublimation that sport anthropologically entails - summarized in the conception of homo ludens - nor will we dwell on the well-known comparison with war, already present in the agonistic spirit of the Greeks, who stood out for their love of competition and the cultivation of excellence even on the battlefield. A "hero" is one who excels in bravery and integrity, who becomes an example despite his inevitable misfortune and can be mourned and celebrated for it, giving rise to the emotionally restorative phenomenon that Aristotle defined as catharsis. However, the "result-oriented" mentality that exalts the goal scorer in our spectacle society will also be his sentence, when it transmutes him into an antihero without his professionalism being able to do anything to avoid the condemnation of not even being able to be mourned.
The adored idol becomes cursed when his thaumaturgical function is exhaustedManuel Vázquez Montalbán wrote, in one of the articles compiled in Football. A religion in search of a God, "the center forward is a madman apart (…). He knows the hopelessness of afternoon after afternoon when all the holes are blocked and the public shouts at him: 'Blockhead!' The public is ignorant that the holes are mysterious nothingnesses that suddenly appear to the craziest center forwards, just as ancient angels appeared to the most rustic virgins." At the Santiago Bernabéu stadium, the same setting where a parody ofHow to Be John Malkovich-even more surreal than Spike Jonze's film, and that's saying something- when the audience wore thousandsCristiano Ronaldo masksso that he would be awarded the Ballon d'Or in 2013, the "artist" would be booed on repeated occasions (2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018) for his poor performance. The adored idol becomes cursed when his thaumaturgical function is exhausted.
"GOOD THEATER" (THE SURREAL TRUTH)
The experience of "being Cristiano" for a day, for a few hours or minutes -as proposed in that film- could be pleasant for many of those shielded behind the false appearance of that celebrity. The reality inherent to the transformation brought about by the mask has been explained by authors such as Slavoj Zizek or Julia Kristeva from Lacanian psychoanalysis, as well as -closer to us- by the Barcelona philosopher Eugenio Trías, by forcing the Latin etymology of the term persona (per/sonare) already in his work Filosofía y carnaval: a mask that gives volume to the actors' discourse and that institutes the individual being. Coinciding with oneself while being another (making it seem that one is another) is something that anyone, from childhood, can enjoy, however little they apply themselves to it. What happens, however, when the mask one puts on is one's own? It is possible that, as happens to John Malkovich when he enters his own mind, absolute self-referentiality causes a kind of metaphysical indigestion. "I have seen a world that no man should see!", exclaims with overwhelming realism the actor John Malkovich after leaving himself, in what is a fascinating exercise in metafiction by the creators.
Following that surrealist (literally: "over-realist") speculation, it may happen that being projected in everyone as a mere character makes one realize that one is essentially nothing more than that, a puppet, without its own entity. A famous expression, the one that states that "the character has eaten the person," would be applicable in cases of theatrical overexposure; that of our protagonist or that of certain coaches -José Mourinho at the head- confessed lovers of the performing arts and victims of the love for the representation of their role. That unrestrained histrionism could be understood as a "kind" of circular condemnation, in the style of a Sisyphus or a Tantalus. In short, the hidden face of his apparent wealth, of his "fortune," as Boethius explained to offer comfort to the disadvantaged. But, of course -let's assume it- it is also possible that the histrion, who gets rich thanks to our passion for the spectacle, lives happily, oblivious to the threat of temporal or eternal condemnations.