I’m not from Betis -I was born on the other side, near the end of the world-, but I confess that I cried like a cupcake when Joaquín said goodbye. And not only because I stopped being young at the same moment that the last professional footballer from my fifth in the First Division retired. Exceptions – even those that only serve to prove the rule – have a special attraction: the charm of mystery. And in these strange times in which soccer has become the most effective tool to whitewash the darkest corners, it is moving to see an elite player who does not supplement his pension plan with petrodollars and says goodbye to the field in the club of their loves.
Even more exciting is to see that this romantic, almost revolutionary attitude has a reward. It is not Cristiano Ronaldo’s 200 million at Al Nassr, or Benzema’s 100 million per season at Al Ittihad. There are 60,000 butts, uniformed with the shirt that bears your name, getting up at the same time at the Benito Villamarín to celebrate your goal in a friendly, the tribute match that a few days ago pitted players and former players against each other a few days ago. from Betis with the so-called “team of legends”, made up of historical footballers with whom Joaquín had fought (Casillas, Guti, Sergio Ramos, Raúl, Cazorla, Capdevila… ). It’s Niña Pastori, your friend, singing a song that gives you goosebumps on the lawn, for you and for the other 60,000. It’s saying goodbye, barefoot, to the wet grass where you’ve left your skin. And see that your tears, like yawns, are contagious among the fans that have made you a member of their family.
🌏💚✨
There are legends that travel the entire world #Joaking pic.twitter.com/LTG6Z10nID
— Real Betis Balompié 🌴💚 (@RealBetis) June 6, 2023
It was nice to see the almost 42 years of the captain running, 622 games later, towards the goal with a smile from ear to ear before getting fed up with tears of emotion when giving an Olympic lap, embraced by applause, to Benito Villamarín. And it was inevitable to compare that farewell with those who packed their bags to retire playing against that young Saudi population that the country’s authorities try to distract from their wild daily life with the oldest strategy that exists: bread and circuses. There will be those who say that all this is a bit naive, but if they had to choose, who would they give their last kiss to? Who would they share the last dance with? Would they trade the love of their life for someone they had just met?
Lúcas Pérez was also called crazy when, at 34, he left Cádiz, in the first division, and a contract of two million euros to go to a team two categories below, Dépor, with the aim of helping him return to professional football, to the elite. It couldn’t be, but he doesn’t give up. “There is no better place to finish my career than this, trying to pay back what they gave me in their day”, he repeats before the disbelievers. The heart sometimes has reasons that money does not understand.
Joaquín will be captain emeritus of Betis, to which he will continue to be linked, now off the pitch. And Lúcas Pérez will continue to be stopped by A Coruña to thank him even if reality does not end like the story that he has dared to write in the most prosaic stage of the most popular sport.
If there is someone who resigns to go on vacation, to eat away from home sometime or to buy that jacket that he likes to be able to take his son to football every 15 days -and there are many-, there should also be a footballer on the other side who renounces dizzying contracts of the petromonarchies to correspond to that sacrifice by giving himself to the fans until the end. It’s comforting when it happens. And what is happening in Saudi Arabia is dangerous, not only in the muddy terrain of public relations and image laundering, but also in sports: its aggressive and effective policy of raining millions threatens to break -once again – the market, making it more expensive, and no one guarantees that they will settle for players in the last stage of their career. Everything points to the opposite.
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