I have passed the time of venial sins and occasional martyrdom in search of biblical salvation, but sometimes I listen to the sports program, especially out of respect for the few experienced, fit and dignified colleagues who still remain like birds that have flown over the swamp without staining their white feathers.

Barcelona SC, victim of hateful Creole cannibalism

Forgive me for introducing myself as Rubén Darío, Nicaraguan poet (1867-1916), the highest representative of literary modernism in the Spanish language. This has to be cleared up because savvy experts in systems, tactics and counter-tactics will believe it’s a Concacaf goalscorer or Xolos de Tijuana’s latest signing.

Players don’t like football anymore

Each program has its own squad of grenadiers ready to kill the beauty of football, its close aesthetics ballet the classics, the romantic relationship with the opposing network, the love of currency, the pursuit of victory with loyal arguments, respect for the audience, loyalty to the show, which is what brings people to the stadiums.

Sports journalism in Ecuador today: demolishing memories

For them, César Luis Menotti and Josep Guardiola are cheaters, hateful subjects who want to play well, for footballers to show love for their profession and the game, and for ethics and nobility to be present in every procedure. Examples to follow: José Mourinho, excessive in his desire to win, who turned Pepe, the Portuguese defender, into a butcher, and Sergio Ramos, a slaughterhouse worker in Madrid. The coach who, when he was Guardiola’s assistant at FC Barcelona, ​​greeted Tito Vilanova by shoving his finger in his eye, ignoring the fact that he was sick with cancer and that his days were numbered.

Vindication of the ‘old guard’ in journalism

Mourinho is the one who went on a fierce hunt for Xavi, Messi, Iniesta, Busquets in the match at Camp Nou which Madrid lost 5-0. The one that when the second leg was played at the Bernabéu, and the royal fans were hoping to collect the debt for the historic defeat, they found a trembling Real Madrid lying on Casillas’ goal to prevent the defeat from happening again. A generation of know-it-alls admires him and considers him a “balanced” coach. Guardiola and Menotti are “romantic” and “lyrical”.

I can’t stop looking back on these topics because there are few of us who save decency in football and sports in general from the media, and the pack shows its teeth to destroy us. What happens is that we have a life of active sports, dedication, word, reading, memory and history as weapons. And before the power of these artifacts of war, a generation of false know-it-alls is lost. So lost that in some program they started to claim that they were reading (without explaining what they were reading), that they were interested in education, and even went so far as to claim that they love history, that they are not its enemies. It can be seen that due to misinformation and minimal intellectuality, they have some modesty left.

He said that from time to time I listen to a radio program hosted by a valued friend and colleague whom I respect. Sometimes I can’t because I’m swimming, and a device for tuning the radio underwater hasn’t been invented yet. Last Friday I was able to hear an interview with a character who I don’t know exactly who he is, but it can be concluded that he occupies a high position (well paid, of course) in the Pro League, the entity that directs and organizes the professional football championship.

He didn’t leave a good impression on me with his football sage arrogance, attribution of great experience, self-aggrandizement and credit he gave himself for his role in a tournament like Ecuador’s, which is really bad. Our championship is among the top 30 in the world and is better than that of Argentina, Brazil and other countries, he said. I’m not putting it in quotes because it’s not a direct quote, but it’s what he said. I have no doubt that it is where it is, because in most cases scale they are liars or the calculations were made with absurd mathematical operations.

Mexico was placed sixth in the ranking FIFA for the 2006 World Cup and was considered a planetary powerhouse, to the extent that it was seeded in that tournament. And we all know the technical condition of Aztec football.

The Pro League official also stated that Ecuadorian soccer has never been as good as it is today and that the national championship is attracting crowds. In my opinion, Ecuadorian football is going through a severe crisis, and the symptom of that is the national tournament. The only ones interested in the games are the bar people promoted by the hosts themselves. We already know what they are, how they work and where their interests lie. Behind the drums, trumpets, giant flags, firearms, daggers, torches and smoking fireflies is great work. That’s why they go to stadiums.

Not all, but the majority. A large number of fans, due to their healthy enthusiasm, no longer go to the stadiums due to insecurity at the entrance to the games, and also at the exit. All this is part of the championship which, according to officials, is an example in many countries of the world. Like me, thousands of football lovers come from an era that did not have excessive commercialization like today. There weren’t even today’s grotesque scenes in the stands. On the field, everything was sacrifice, emotion in the defense of the colors, inspiration, fantasy, dribbling, popcorn, Chilean kicks, goals.

For us, therefore, comparison is inevitable. Is it worth measuring the memory of that Barcelona from 1971 that beat Estudiantes in La Plata with 2023, that dragged itself through the mud to come back dancing and beaten? Can Sosa, Piñatares, Souza, Bauman, Fydriszewski make us forget Pepona Reinaldi, Saldivia, Everaldo, Moacyr, Tiriza, Pepe Paes, Parakeet Leon, Ephanor, Toninho Vieira, Trobbiani, Insúa? Not to mention the national ones. No lucky millionaire soccer player today, inflated by addict journalism, can compare to Luciano Macías, Vicente Lecar, Clímaco Cañarte, Wacho Muñoz, Sigifred Chuchuco, Enrique Cantos and the legions of them. cracks. It is not nostalgia, but a model of quality and influence on the team. The magic of guided memory is denied to today’s inexperienced ‘journalists’ who have not experienced what we elders experience.

When the director of the radio program asked the official about the decision to authorize eight foreigners in each club, he replied that this measure was the most successful in the entire history of football. Doesn’t that harm the appearance of the young players, doesn’t it get in their way? asked the director. And the Liga Pro employee said that this argument is “archaic”. I thought I heard that he accused the journalist of xenophobia (hatred of foreigners).

It is positive because young people have to fight to go abroad and that is good for our football, he asserted. And he also presented statistics that the more foreigners there are – it doesn’t matter the packages – the better for our football. I then remembered a sentence said by someone important: “There are three kinds of lies: lies, big lies and statistics.” (OR)