Moisés Caicedo did not imagine the dream dimension of his crying on November 29, 2022. He was at the Khalifa International Stadium in Rayán, Qatar. Filming dedicated that moment: a kneeling and defeated star. Coach Gustavo Alfaro tries to comfort him, but he can’t. He can’t get up. His spirit collapsed. That body, burdened with physical and strategic power, becomes the bearer of a cry that transcends it and is unfathomable. There is a small country, crossed by the Andes and the equator, that cries with him. What is behind the crying of baby Moi? Naivety? Did you think Ecuador could win the World Cup? What did the earth feel, while the star cried in front of the whole planet?

Born in Santo Domingo, Moisés trained at Espoli and Colorados Sporting Club, until arriving at Independiente del Valle, perhaps his true rite of passage, which led him to the U-20 Copa Libertadores champions and revealed him as a star. As his country’s disintegration became inevitable, he signed for Brighton, England, that civilized island of fog where football was born. Soon after, the legendary Liverpool FC and Chelsea FC competed for Moisés, the other club to triumph, in what is probably the most expensive transfer in Premier League history to date.

When the boy Torres played his last game, rojiblanca fans were able to express what every colchonero felt in his heart: “From boy to legend”. Overwhelmed with emotions, the Wanda Metropolitano raised to the altars of the history of Spanish football a personality that gave them hope and happiness. Also in the case of Moisés, because he started his journey as a legend so young, the press and his followers baptized him as a child. When asked about the possibility of being nicknamed Moisex, he confirmed: “I like being called Niño Moi, I like it because I’m a boy.” A crying child, a breaking star, a promise that goes down in the history of football, but who knows today, painfully, that he will not be able to change the history of his country, because, as Calderón de la Barca wrote, “Dreams are dreams”.

Now, as child Moi begins to fulfill his destiny, I return to his cry. The cry shed by the future, when it realizes what the present is like. The cry with which he watered the earth for new planting and harvest. Perhaps Niño Moi’s dream, deep down, was not for his country to win the World Cup, but for his country to be happy. And now, when the evolution of Ecuadorian history spills over onto us, as if a cliff awaits us at the end of the road, happiness and faith is given to us by Niño Moi and his signature for the blue lions. Maybe, thanks to him, we can believe for a few seconds that the future exists. And maybe there is. In announcing the engagement, he showed, together with his mother, a photo from 2020 in Cayambe, when he was wearing a Chelsea jersey, but not as a hunch, but as a wish. And that is that all life, as Calderón de la Barca thought, is and should be a dream. (OR)