“Jugar contra un equipo que se defiende es como hacer el amor con un arbol”.
- Jorge Valdano.
When I was kid I loved watching spaghetti westerns. They were uncomplicated. Honest. The heroes were good and the antagonists were evil. There were no gray areas.
Until one day, one of my uncles, who was studying art, (also the one who used to send me rolling in tires down hills in San Francisco’s Mission District when he was bored) introduced me to Sergio Leone’s classic, the last movie from his Fistful of Dollar’s trilogy: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly (Hoo! Haa! Eh! Eh!). Hands down one of the best westerns of all time. I was fascinated by the story, the characters, the non-stop suspense and action!!!
In a time before VCRs and cable TV I would scourge the TV Guide to see when it would play again. Every fall it would play on KTVU channel 2 and I’d make my Abuelito go buy me a roast beef sammich with extra mayo and a soda from Roxie’s, the local corner store. That was heaven. A time uncomplicated.
I went on to school and my perspective on that movie changed forever. Who was the good guy? Eastwood was the least of the bad guys! More savvy, better looking, but the dude was twisted. Check out that last scene if you don’t believe me.
The director, Sergio Leone, while discussing his version of the wild west claimed: "The real West was the world of violence, fear and brutal instincts. In pursuit of profit there is no such thing as good and evil, generosity or deviousness; everything depends on chance and not the best wins but the luckiest”. Sounds legit.
The LIGA MX’s Guard1anes 2020 is the wild west. Jorge Valdano once said “playing a defensive team is like making love to a tree”. The Mexican league is full of trees.
More teams move to destroy games than respond to them in a positive way. Eleven behind the mid-field line waiting for the opportunity to counter, score and close the lock.
So, teams which at least attempt to find the magic of the Jogo Bonito or Tiki-Taka, as Bermudez calls it, find their efforts frustrated. As do the spectators.
Many of my close friends, including my wife, say they prefer to watch the Premier League. Defend and attack. Forward momentum in passing. Minimum time loss (no rolling on the ground faking injuries). The referee is a guide and not a referent. All this results in what I call MCS: Maximum Consumer Satisfaction.
The real premise behind the Premier League’s success lay fully on the commercial pressure applied by the team’s commercial backers. After all, higher customer satisfaction will logically increase brand and team revenues. One day FEMEXFUT. One day.
Whenever Guadalajara plays Ricardo ‘Tuca’ Ferreti’s version of UANL I think of Leone’s version of the wild, wild west. An honest view, “everything depends on chance and not the best one wins but the luckiest”.
Instead of building plays and looking for the beautiful game, Chivas' starting eleven turn into arborists, tree trimmers. Gun Slingers. For some, frustration. I see opportunity. Gun Slingers.
I want to see the boys in action. I want to watch these arborists trim away at the tree and open the lock. El Rebaño Sagrado needs to embody Sergio Leone’s not so good guy. They need to be smarter and faster than the Bad and the Ugly.
I saw them do it once. I was a witness to it. It was beautiful. People said they would trash us then as they are doing now. They. The talking heads. The Talking Heads say ‘Tuca’ is some kind of other world divinity. Let’s agree to disagree. A “the destroyer of worlds” as in the Bhagavad Gita, perhaps.
It’s easy to destroy. Unlike most I can see the forest despite the trees. And in this forest I see a shining, squinty eyed, Clint Eastwood, chomping a ragged cigar. In almost too quiet, ragged rasp he says … “Areeebuh los Cheevuss seeñores.”
