Manage expectations | Soccer | Sports

Ramon Besa says, with his calm and deep wisdom, that the big problem of Real Madrid and FC Barcelona is that before the start of the season they already have all the trophies of the year in their museum. Come on, winning them isn’t even a cause for joy anymore, but it’s more like when you came home – that never happened at my house – with excellent grades and the best comment was summed up in that it was normal.

Certainly, friend Ramon, we should eat together again to review these objectives because it seems to me that times are much rarer – and even a Super Cup can be celebrated – but the argument is perfect to put ourselves in the place of these clubs that They meet in February with the possibility of winning a title and taking a trophy to the museum.

Yes, now I know that in the financial world we live in, qualification for the Champions League, the League, is the daily meal and the food we yearn for to nourish our finances so that next year we can balance our budget, respect the economic expectations of our players and, if necessary, access the market to improve the squad.

The fact is that in this world where to say present is to live in the future, we all project ourselves onto the achievements of our teams as if they were already assured. Let’s see, if you are a Real Madrid fan, even if you are not if you are just a football fan, it seems that this League should already go to the new Bernabéu to contribute to the inauguration of the new museum and that it should already engrave the name of Real Madrid in order to shorten the protocols.

If we look at the Cup we will see that we have contradictory versions. All this is perhaps due to the fact that the four competing teams are not among those – perhaps a little more in the case of Atlético – who are required to win one trophy per season.

When the playoffs are played in a single match, the concept is clear, since you must win the match to advance to the next round. And this leads to a strategy which can only be to play the game, with various tactics, but seeking victory. Although that changes considerably when we reach that semi-final stage and back-and-forth game.

The first reason, because it’s already the semi-finals, it smells like the final on the other side of the river and the fans are starting to get excited, to reserve themselves, to dream and ask themselves: “And if this year ? Secondly, the season is already far enough along to know what the expectations will be in other competitions and playing the Cup is something very different from playing for money (well, the Cup is also about money, but in a different way). And the last, because in February the season has a number of disappointments in store for us which we hope the Cartuja final will help to make bearable. And the 180-minute playoffs are the devil’s fault.

But notice that the one who took the most advantage in this first phase of the semi-finals, Athletic, perhaps because of its deep knowledge of its competition, surely also because of the calm of its coach, invited his supporters excited to continue to suffer. during the return match. Surely, so that no one thinks that the final has been reached, but above all because achievements in football, in sports and in life require a lot of effort, work and dark dedication to achieve pleasure, celebration since this simple gesture of placing a glass on a pedestal in a museum has become a reality.

Managing expectations is one of the trickiest issues for anyone who has played sports. Being excessively realistic can lead to deadly conformity, but being excessively euphoric can mean believing you have won the title before vying for a tie and thus being on the verge of losing it.

Yes, virtue must be there, in the middle. But everyone tells it to everyone, to everyone, to those who are already booking hotels and trips, planning outings and celebrations, fulfilling Cruyff’s dictum “go out and enjoy”, not to mention how much one has to suffer for happiness to arrive. . If happens.

You can follow EL PAÍS Deportes in Facebook And Xor sign up here to receive our weekly newsletter.

_