With fine disobedience

• World Cup: Japan surpasses its J-Day, with a record of Matsushima

The Rugby World Cup kicked off this Friday with a Japan-Russia (30-10), which for the Spanish fan was like seeing a neighbor from a bus stop - more miserable and with less resources than you - uploaded to a Maserati. A neighbor who drives worse and who stole your car at the last minute (the Russians) because you screwed up and well.

The good news is that it will be six weeks of rugby in Japan and there will be 48 games. The bad news is that there is no Spain.

In his book With Fine Disobedience (KO Books), Fermín de la Calle recalls that fateful day of 2018 when the XV of the Lion threw overboard a historic opportunity. The chapter is entitled The day he lost rugby and details that black day, the arbitral outrage that took us out of the World Cup and the improper behavior of the Spanish players at the end.

We saw that game in a pub with the boys. At least 30 children from the glorious Alcorcón Rugby Club. It got lost. There was nothing exemplary. But from that meeting we have taken many things: that not everything is done, not giving anything for cattle, a communion that lasts, the desire to oval.

(...)

One day I told Fermín in La Veguita that we needed him. And this not only because there is very little Spanish rugby literature. But because our children grow and grow and need a new catechism.

At the age of five I read stories from Perrault . Now that you are going through adolescence, I tell you the wonderful lives of With fine disobedience .

The story of Colin Meads , that New Zealander who trained through the hills of his village with a sheep under each arm: «I'm worried about modern rugby, they get too hot. If you need to practice so much before a game, you don't deserve to be on the team ».

The story of the glass eye that the South African De Bruyn gave to the widow of the Scottish Gordon Brown , in memory of one just like the second took the first in a tackle.

The story of the lost generation, the 130 rugby players who died in World War I.

Or I read to you what Fermin has written -thanks a thousand times-, as if it were a prayer: «The boat of a rugby ball is like life itself: sometimes it plays bad passes and sometimes it smiles at you. This forces you to be prepared for the best and for the worst ».

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

• rugby
• Rugby World

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