Arrigo Sacchi said it: “Football is the most important of the least important things.” Carlo Ancelotti turned to him this Monday. The Italian, he explained, did not want to talk about the Champions League match against Milan this Tuesday. I didn’t have my head in football. As dozens of footballers who had to play a game this weekend did not have it. Neither do the Valencians, who have sadness, disaster, anguish, worry in their heads. The Valencians are up to their eyebrows in mud. They are tired, hungry, some have diarrhea, others’ calves are suffering from walking through the mud so much. They feel helpless and discouraged. They have been abandoned to their fate. The discomfort is terrible. And the fear has been buried in the rubble and the cars that will never be recovered. Now, when another neighbor or friend asks, most see a light: “We have lost everything, but we are all fine.” It is the most common response in conversations these days. From Alfafar to Algemesí, passing through Paiporta or Catarroja. Towns that those in the area recite as if it were an alignment. Where you don’t have a cousin, you have a friend or an ex. And where the days go by without brown continuing to dye almost everything.
That is the stage in which the last day of the League was played. After seeing how Vicente Moreno, from Massanassa, broke down. Incapable of even speaking because he didn’t quite understand what he was doing preparing for an Osasuna game instead of being where he wanted to be, where his family needed him, where hands were needed to bail out water and clean basements that are now uninhabitable. A day that should never have been played. As a distraught Luis García Plaza warned: “Just because we have played this game, there is no way to take it.” It was a day of shame and pain. With footballers with their heads elsewhere. Like Pablo Fornals. “Today was not a day to celebrate anything,” he said.
Football didn’t stop, but neither did basketball. The sport did not stop, because by not stopping “the most important of the least important things”, no one felt challenged.
Ancelotti says that footballers and coaches do not have the necessary strength to suspend a League day. It’s hard to believe it. This revolt has lacked a leader who has been left alone in regret. A shared lament, yes. But little more. Javier Tebas did not react, nor did the clubs. Out of solidarity. Out of understanding towards those main actors who could not think about the ball, but rather about shovels and brushes. The Higher Sports Council also did not take command, which could well have suspended the competition even for a weekend. As a sign of mourning.
It is understood that when last Wednesday the League responded to Valencia’s request to postpone the match against Madrid (and other clubs from affected areas) they were still not able to realize the dimension of the tragedy. But until Friday they had enough time to assimilate it. And to extend the suspension to the entire day.
This Tuesday the Champions League returns, football returns. And no one is surprised. The world will not stop. Because even the sun appeared over Valencia after the storm. But many of us would feel more at peace with football if for once it had really been the least important thing.
