Rivalry

When a game is won,
A team wins.
When you hate your rivals,
Love loses.
And if God is love…
When a game is won,
A team wins.
When you hate your rivals,
Love loses.
And if God is love…
What a hard exercise then, to just .. love your rivals

What a hard exercise then, to just .. love your rivals

Once upon a time, I got the chance to love a rival, I got to love him deliberately: Lionel Andrés Messi Cuccittini was his name. From Barca.
Lucky for me, I look like him and play like him, and also  share his meddle name, so it was easy for me to admire him … any way

From that day on, I started to wonder:
What if I admire a person who’s not from my country?
What if I love a team from a country with which we’ve a quite story of conquest/independence & racism towards us? ..
Thank God I didn’t care. If I would have let their flaws affect me, I wouldn’t have got the chance watch their playing

I remember when he came to play at the Monumental for the South American qualifiers.
I remember being one of the few with his #10 shirt  in the middle of that yellow stadium.
By the time Argentina won 1–0 against Ecuador, thank God I didn’t care about the yelling, because they did yell a lot … “Sit down, Argentino.” Is what they used to say.

I couldn’t help but marvel at myself upon unlocking this new level of love in my short life:
This level of loving to my rivals, and I thought I was the only one until I saw the most fascinating scene at the Copa América.

After the tensest game of the tournament, penalties arrived.
Dibu Martínez was already a puppet (it’s not his fault; it was a “high development” technique dictated by artificial intelligence), making faces and dancing to the rhythm of a bully.

Messi missed the first penalty.
Dida Domínguez, who could have taunted him at first, barely saw him.
Instead, He went straight to take the ball out of the net.
(I say he couldn’t stand to watch that symbol of “Loco Abreu’s Style” penalty failure.)

And then, the magic happened…
Dida Domínguez went straight to Leo Messi, held him,
And told him, “It’s all right, my friend… no worries.”
By that time, Lio knew everybody wanted him to win, to win everything!.

There was I … with love overdose, watching how Ecuador showed the world, the best way to manifest love for its rivals.

That day, Argentina won the game. They won the whole tournament.
But Ecuador won in humbleness, in sane rivalry, in love-&-kindness in loving your rivals.

Dida won the heart of every person that was aware of this (and for those who weren’t is this text).

I like to think that God was smiling watching  that match; or who knows, creating it..

I don’t know who I will support in the next World Cup (besides my country and the current champion),But I do know this: humbleness and lovingkindness will be my flag, and I’ll try a little bit more…

To love my rivals.