The Picture

In thirty years, in some blog or tumblr (or their equivalent in the future) dedicated to vintage football someone will post the photo of two smiling young men with tousled hair, hairy chests and three-day beards locked in a sober and affectionate embrace. With an adidas towel as a casual (or strategical) backdrop their faces will show an honest, serene and fatigued happiness.

The caption of the photo, which with its discretely sepia tone will suggest a time before it was originally taken, will read something like “Xabi Alonso and Granero after winning La Liga with Real Madrid, 05/02/2012”. It is possible that some young kid, after seeing that blog or tumblr (or whatever), will ask his father about those two players and he will reply telling him about the elegance, the authority and the precise forty meter passes of Xabi Alonso and of the special sensibility of Granero, of his exquisite affair with the ball and that perpetual melancholia that seemed to be always with him on and off the pitch. The father will tell him that those two were not common footballers back in those days. They didn’t have tattoos, they didn’t have extravagant hairstyles nor shaved bodies. Besides, the father will add making special emphasis on each syllable, they were two inquisitive and cultured men. They read, they had a fine musical taste and they were lovers of good cinema. Two special guys.

That picture was taken in the dressing room of San Mamés as Real Madrid celebrated its 32nd La Liga trophy, the father will add. I recall perfectly that season and I remember the precise moment in which Granero shared that picture on Twitter.

Twitter? And what’s that? 

Oh son, let’s leave that for another day.

[Original in Spanish from Belfast Boy]

Posted on Mayo 5th at 10:14 AM
Has a total of: 300 Notes