A wish for 2026: for the essential to return

I’ve been taking a look at a protracted assortment of objectives from the Quinta del Buitre years. The benefit of Actual Madrid is that the historical past is so lengthy and pleased that, each time the current will get an excessive amount of for you, you’ll be able to at all times take pleasure in yesterday’s soccer. The dangerous factor about watching yesterday’s soccer is that it’s like opening the field of non-public recollections, and seeing what stays – for higher or worse – of the bright-eyed youngster to whom the Three Sensible Males introduced, for the primary time, the entire Actual Madrid package.

What’s hanging, in distinction to immediately’s fields, is the extraordinary potato fields by which they performed at the moment in winter. You place any elite footballer immediately to play on a subject like this, and in lower than 5 minutes you’ve gotten him retired for your complete season with damaged each doable bone in every leg. These guys had been seasoned in pure heroism. They didn’t get injured in the midst of that immense pond out of pure character.

The offensive-defensive distinction additionally had its attraction. Chendo ran over his band like a prepare uncontrolled, Sanchís was the self-discipline adorned by that stiff verticality within the determine, whereas Camacho turned his facet right into a rattling Vietnam. However the tough and difficult soccer on the again contrasted with the delicate expertise from the midfield upwards. There Martín Vázquez watched the video games like nobody else, he understood soccer, and he had the behavior of placing the ball within the place the place he ought to put it, which has triple benefit if we take into account that, with 4 drops of water, the ball didn’t roll on these fields, however reasonably made terrifying jumps as if it had been an egg.

Míchel stretched the band past the bounds of actuality. Any coach would kill him immediately for such audacity, however he usually wanted each final centimeter earlier than the baseline for his specialty, placing it precisely there to Hugo Sánchez, who was a sort of pinball “flipper”, hitting every little thing spherical, and virtually at all times in the direction of the within of the objective. Then got here the acrobatics.

I dream of 2026 with a Actual Madrid with a sure legionary spirit, with the true weight of the defend displayed by these boys who made us fly with hope within the distant days when respectable music performed on the radio

And if the play referred to as for much more expertise, he acquired the Vulture, the place he appreciated essentially the most, near the sting of the world, to cease time trying on the defender, seconds like hours, who appeared like he was going to take out a cigarette and calmly throw it at him earlier than beginning, and when all of the defenders had been like puppies ready for somebody to throw the puck at them, he turned on his engines from zero to at least one hundred, and the objective was already made.

That Actual Madrid had apparent shortcomings, however they made up for them with pure Madridismo. Maybe immediately’s youngest individuals don’t want so many tactical movies, however reasonably lengthy, leisurely classes on the not possible sources that the boys of the late 80s and early 90s had been able to; I already know that there are different a long time that may serve for example, however I’m speaking in regards to the one which marked my childhood days, the primary enthusiasm for soccer.

At this time some boys confuse character with incomes silly crimson playing cards, or with howling lots on the referee. Clearly these from Quinta del Buitre additionally did it, however my feeling – renewed now that I’ve seen so many performs from these leagues once more – is that the primary character requirement was with themselves. That you just noticed Gordillo, Míchel, or Hugo Sánchez hitting the bottom in anger for having arrived late for a steal, for a foul move, or for a foul choice within the rival space.

I dream of a 2026 of success and expertise, after all, however above all of a Actual Madrid that recovers the spirit of the good deeds, that doesn’t decrease its arms, that doesn’t look exterior for excuses to justify its personal errors. I dream of 2026 with a Actual Madrid with a sure legionary spirit, with the true weight of the defend displayed by these boys who made us fly with pleasure within the distant days when respectable music performed on the radio.