Barcelona collapses in the classic of decrepitude

• Chronicle: The classic sanctifies Vinicius
• Marcelo-Vinicius: the Brazilian left-handed cocktail that stirred the Benabéu
• Cristiano Ronaldo.Return to Santiago Bernabéu for the classic

Life could be summed up in a single scene. That is, as usually happens in our lives. Better to forget and put on something else than to wonder about the reason for the nonsense. Vinicius , always tormented, always wandering between that indivisible border between genius and ridicule, grabbed the ball again on the shore. The boy lives with a curious sentence. It is an extreme unable to match the rattle of his legs with the orientation of his feet. Semedo , namely why, went for Benzema . And Martin Braithwaite , who had never imagined being in those, chose to attend the events at a distance. Vinicius finished who knows where, and Piqué , perhaps tired of shrinking water in his area, eventually beat Ter Stegen , since the German had not overthrown the rivals. As if that were not enough, Mariano wrote the epitaph.

What happened in the Santiago Bernabéu was nothing more than the classic of decrepitude. Because there was neither rigor nor order. Neither serenity nor madness. Simply, a handful of men in search of a plank in the immensity of the ocean that would allow them to survive a little longer. Hence, Barcelona, ​​on a night in which Messi never recognized himself - Marcelo celebrated that Foreman could knock out Muhammad Ali - and in which Griezmann returned to his catatonic state, he did not know how to take advantage of that handful of minutes of the first act in the that Quique Setién sensed some of his aesthetic dreams. Or that Real Madrid, despite its unstructured game, despite its limitations in execution, will find its way of escape in the troubled bearing of Vinicius.

Real Madrid, who had started the night with the gesture of who intends to emulate a fortress that is not such - upright head, numb heart -, suddenly found himself chasing the ball. The clock had just marked the 20th minute, and the Barcelona players started a pass ritual to which the fans of the Bernabéu opposed the whistle. Perhaps warning that this progressive Barça dominance in rival field could perpetuate white despair. Because Sergio Busquets directed and opened the channel as in the old days. Because Arthur dared to challenge his pubis by winning an open field race to Kroos . And because, at least for a while, the attacks ended where they should, in front of Courtois . The goal, before the break was reached, saved up to three duels in the sun.

Although Setién and Zidane opted for the presence of four midfielders in search of a theoretical control of the board, the intentions - or, rather, the obligations - of one team and another had nothing to do. Barcelona tried to fit Arturo Vidal into the network of passes, whose extremist football seldom takes him away from the utmost nonsense. Real Madrid, with Modric in the bank - nothing lasts forever, Rakitic knows it well -, found no calm in either Kroos or Isco . Footballers made to send, not to recycle.

But what was seen in Barcelona in the first act was nothing more than another contradictory exercise. Beauty never married well with anguish. San Paolo had already stripped a fangless team in the Champions League and had a tendency to lose himself to any difficulty. Real Madrid only had to return to pressure and something as simple as faith so that the whole Setien team collapsed. Without forces for redemption. Without ball or ideology to claim. And now without leadership.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project