快速的回答是：因為我的女兒、因為我的妻子、因為我的家庭來自加泰羅尼亞，但是若要我捫心自問為什麼我依然在這裡，在巴塞羅那，在這糟糕透頂又百無聊賴的時代，答案將是：因為我離歷史上最棒的足球只有四十分鐘火車的路程——我是說，如果我的妻兒決定現在要去阿根廷生活，我會離婚並留在這裡，至少在歐冠決賽之前。因為這個世界從來沒有在足球場內見這樣的歷史，任何年代都沒有，而且它也很可能將不再發生。這絕非妄言，我的確是在一個特殊時代提筆，在我寫下文字的這個星期，梅西為阿根廷踢進三球，在歐冠中為巴塞羅那踢進五球，在聯賽中踢進兩球。三個不同賽事，三場不同比賽，十個進球。加泰羅尼亞的媒體對其他事情都漠不關心，有那麼一陣，經濟危機再也不是新聞頭條談論的話題，網絡上爆炸了一般。身處其中，一個想法躍進我的腦海，一個非常奇怪、難以理解的想法。正是這個想法促使我捉筆，看看我是否可以將它清晰地呈現出來。
一切都是從今天早上開始的，我正在YouTube上瀏覽著那些看不完的梅西進球集錦，我這麼做有些心虛，因為我正在編輯Number6雜誌，不行該不務正業。無意之中，我點進了一個之前沒有看過的集錦，我原本以為它和其他成千上萬集錦沒有什麼區別，但很快我就發現事實並非如此，這個集錦不是梅西進球的片段，不是他最好的盤帶、最好的助攻。這是個奇怪的集錦，視頻裡有數個片段，每個只有兩三秒，在這些片段裡，梅西遭受了各種侵人犯規，但卻沒有倒在地上。他不會跳水假摔，不會抱怨，也不會故意去要一個任意球或者點球。在每一幀裡，他都努力找回平衡，眼神卻一刻也不離開足球，他用幾乎非人類的努力，來確保比賽不被吹停，或者對方球員不會得到一張黃牌。那些短小的片段裡有許許多多暴力的踢人、阻擋、踩踏、犯規，粗魯的剷球、拉扯衣服，我從來沒有看過這些犯規被放到一起。他帶球時被人踢到脛骨，但仍然繼續奔跑；他被人踢在腳踝上、踉蹌著，仍然繼續奔跑；他被防守隊員大力拉扯著球衣，他掙脫開來，仍然繼續奔跑。
突然之間，我被震在那裡，因為這些畫面裡有某些熟悉的東西——
我用慢動作重放著這些鏡頭，意識到梅西的眼睛在意的就只有足球，而不在乎競技比賽，不在乎場合環境。如今的足球，有著相當嚴格的規則，按照這些規則，倒地很多時候意味著得到一個點球，或者讓對方球員得到一張黃牌，這些在將來的反擊中會派上用場。在這些片段裡，梅西似乎對“足球”或者“機會”一無所知，他像是著了魔，被催了眠，他只想要皮球打進球門，他不關心競技，不關心結果，不關心規則。你只有仔細地觀察他的雙眼才能明白，他眯縫著眼睛，就像是在努力看清一條字幕，他全神貫注盯著那皮球，就算有人對他刺傷一刀也絕不離開視線。我之前在哪裡見過這樣的眼神，他看起來如此熟悉，那種深陷在自己的世界裡心無旁騖的樣子。
我暫停視頻，放大了看他的雙眼，然後我記了起來——為了一塊海綿而痴迷的Totin（小狗的名字）的雙眼，也是如此。當我是一個孩子時，我有一條叫做Totin的小狗，沒什麼能讓他在意。他也不是一條聰明的狗，有賊人破門而入，他就這麼瞧著他們把電視偷走；門鈴響了他也充耳不聞，我如果嘔吐，他也不會過來舔淨髒汙，但是隻要有人，無論是我母親、我姐姐或者我自己，拿著一塊海綿，一塊黃色的海綿來清洗盤子，Totin就好似瘋了一樣。他想要那塊海綿，這世界上的任何東西都不能與之相比，只要能把那塊黃色的長方形軟快帶回他的狗窩，他死也心甘情願。我給他看我握著海綿的右手，他就就緊緊盯著它；我來回晃著手，他的視線也隨之移動，他就是無法移動視線一分一毫。不管我晃動的速度有多快，Totin的脖子會以相同的速度跟著海綿走，他的眼神變得敏銳而靈動——就像是梅西的眼睛，不再是一個浮躁懵懂的少年的雙眼。
有那麼幾秒，他們變得如同福爾摩斯的雙眼版銳利，看到這個視頻，我今天才恍然發覺，梅西一頭幼犬，或者說，他是一個犬人。這就是我的想法，抱歉花了這麼久才說清，你們所期望聽到的可能遠不止如此。梅西是踢足球的第一位犬人。很多事都能說得通了，他不在乎規則，或者他根本就不真正明白那些規則存在的意義。犬獸們不會在看到一輛車朝自己開過來時假摔倒地，也不會在貓咪從自己手中逃脫時找裁判申訴，他們不會想讓垃圾車被黃牌警告。一開始，踢足球的人類也是如此，他們為了那個皮球而踢，別無其他，紅黃牌根本不存在，沒有越位，客場球也並不比主場球更有分量。
一開始，人們就像是梅西和Totin一樣踢球，後來，一切都變得奇怪起來。現在，每個人似乎都更關心這項運動的官僚機制，關心它運轉的法則。一場重要的比賽過後，人們會花上一個星期的時間談論它是否合乎規則，juan是不是故意被黃牌，這樣就能錯過下場比賽參加國家德比。Pedro是不是真的在禁區內假摔，208條規定說Ernesto要為U-17比賽，他們會向之前宣佈的那樣讓pancho上場嗎？教練是不是下令往球場過度灑水，好讓對手們滑倒摔個腦袋開花，球童是不是在比賽2-1的時候消失了，在2-2的時候又出現了。俱樂部會為paco的兩張黃牌申訴嗎？Richard抗議Ignacio因為Luis在發球之前拖延而損失的那些時間，裁判給的補時合理嗎？
不，先生，犬獸們不會聽收音機，他們也不讀新聞，他們不懂得這場比賽是五官輕重的友誼賽，還是爭奪冠軍的決賽，他們只想要拿到那塊海綿回到自己窩裡，就算疲勞會讓他們力盡而亡，就算蝨子會令他們疼痛而死。
梅西是一個犬人，他打破了其他時代的記錄，因為犬人僅僅得以踢球到50年代，之後，FIFA將人類邀請進來，大肆談論規則和條款，而我們都忘了那塊海綿有多麼重要。有一天，一個生病的男孩出現了，就像是那天，一個生病的猴子直立起了身子，開啟了人類的歷史。這一次，是一個來自羅薩里奧的孩子，帶著明顯的身體缺陷，他說話磕磕碰碰，舉止笨拙而害羞，身上找不到任何人類所有那些狡猾的影子。但是他有著讓人驚豔的天賦，他控制著那個圓滾滾的膨脹物，把它帶進綠茵場另一頭的球網裡。如果人們允許，他不會做別的任何事，他會永不知倦地將那個白色的皮球送進三根白色邊框中間的地方，就像是西西弗斯，一次又一次。
在梅西單場打進五個進球的比賽之後，瓜迪奧拉說，他願意的那天，他能夠打進六個。這不是奉承，這是對疾病症狀的客觀描繪，里奧內爾·梅西，是個病人。打動我的是一種疾病，我很愛Totin，而梅西是最後一個犬人。我想要觀察這疾病，想要在每個週六看著這疾病更入骨髓一層，這就是為什麼儘管我更想住在別的地方，但卻依然留在巴塞羅那。
每次我走上諾坎普球場的臺階，突然之間看到明亮的球場傳來刺眼燈光，那個瞬間總讓我想起我們的童年，我總會對自己說同樣的話，你真的是非常幸運，Jorge，可以這麼愛一項運動，又活在它最好的時代裡。更重要的是，那片見證一切球場離你如此之近，我享受我的雙重幸運，這是我的寶藏。每當梅西上場，我已然開始懷念當下。歷史長河中這一刻，大千世界這一處，讓我變得瘋狂。
我想，這是因為在最後的審判日來臨那天，所有活在這世上的人，都會聚在一起，談論足球。有人會說，1979年我在阿姆斯特丹求學；有人會說，1962年，我在聖保羅做建築師；還有會說，1987年，我是個身在那不勒斯的少年；我的父親會說，1967年，我在蒙得維的亞遊歷；他之後的人說，我傾聽過1950年馬拉卡納的寂靜。
每個人都會滿懷自豪地講述著自己經歷的戰鬥，直到夜色深沉。故事已經道盡，我會站起身子，慢慢地開口，我生活在巴塞羅那，生活在那犬人的年代，全場會鴉雀無聲，每個人都會低下腦袋，而上帝將會出現，身著最後審判日的盛裝，指著我說，你，那個小胖子，你被救贖了，其他人，都下場吧。
The quick answer is: because of my daughter, because of my wife, because my family is from Catalonia. But if I had to answer with honesty why I'm still here, in Barcelona, in these awful and boring times, it would be: because I'm forty minutes in train away from the best football in history.
I mean, if my wife and daughter decided to go to live to Argentina right now, I would divorce and stay here, at least until the Champions League final. Because the world has never seen something like this inside a football pitch, in no era, ever, and its very likely that it will never happen again.
It's true, I'm writing this at a special time. I'm writing this in the same week that Messi scored three goals for Argentina, five for Barcelona in the Champions League and two for his club in La Liga. Ten goals in three games of three different competitions.
The Catalan press doesn't talk about anything else. For a little while, the economic crisis isn't the subject in the front-page of news. Internet explodes. And in the middle of this, a theory just passed through my head, a very strange, hard to explain theory. That's why I'll try to write it, to see if I can finally grasp it fully. It all started this morning: I'm looking non-stop at Messi goals in YouTube. I'm doing it with guilt because I'm in the middle of the editing of the magazine number six. I shouldn't be doing this. Casually, I click in a compilation of clips I've never seen before. I think it's another video like other thousands of thousands, but I soon realize it's not. The clips are not Messi goals, his best runs, nor his assists. It's a strange compilation: the video shows hundreds of clips, two or three seconds long each, in which Messi receives strong fouls and doesn't fall to the ground.
He doesn't dive or whine. He doesn't intentionally look to gain a free kick or a penalty. In each frame, he keeps his eyes in the ball while he struggles to find balance. He makes inhuman efforts for the play to not be stopped, nor the opposite player to get a yellow card.
They are a lot of little clips of fierce kicks, obstructions, stamps and cheating, reckless tackles and shirt grabbing; I've never seen them altogether. He goes with the ball and receives a kick in the tibia, but keeps going. He gets hit in the ankles: stumbles and keeps going. He gets his shirt grabbed and pulled by a defender: he frees himself and keeps going.
Suddenly, I was stunned, because something was familiar for me in those images. I replayed each frame in slow motion and understood that Messi eyes are always concentrated in the ball, but not in the sport, nor in the context.
Football, today, has very clear regulations by which, a lot of times, going to the ground could mean securing a penalty, or getting an opposition player booked, because it could be useful in later counter-attacks. In these clips, Messi seems to not understand anything about football or about opportunities.
It seems like he's in a trance, hypnotized; he only wants the ball inside the goal. He doesn't care about the sport nor the result nor the laws. You have to look carefully in his eyes to understand it: he squeezes them, like if he was struggling to read a subtitle, he focuses on the ball and doesn't lose sight of it not even if he would get stabbed.
Where did I see that look before? It looked familiar to me, that gesture of unmeasured introspection. I paused the video, zoomed into his eyes and then I remembered: the eyes of Totin when he lost his mind for the sponge.
When I was a child I had a dog called Totin. Nothing moved him. He wasn't an intelligent dog. When thieves broke into the house, he just looked at them while they carried the TV away. The doorbell sounded and he didn't seem to have heard it. I puked and he didn't come to lick it.
But when somebody (my mother, my sister, myself) grabbed a sponge -a yellow sponge to wash the dishes- Totin went mad. He wanted the sponge more than anything in the world, he died for taking that yellow rectangle and carry it to his dog bed. I showed him the sponge with my right hand and he focused on it. I moved it side to side and he never stopped looking at it; he couldn't stop looking at it.
It didn't matter the speed at which I moved the sponge; Totin's neck would move at identical speed through the air. He's eyes turned into attentive, intellectual eyes. Like Messi's eyes , which stop being the eyes of a scatterbrained teenager and, for a few seconds, turns into the attentive sight of Sherlock Holmes.
I discovered today, watching that video, that Messi is a dog. Or a dog-man. That's my theory, I'm sorry that you made it this long with better expectations. Messi is the first dog that plays football.
It has a lot of sense that he doesn't care about the rules, maybe he doesn't even understand them. Dogs don't fake and dive when they see a car coming in their direction, they don't complain to the referee when a cat escapes them, they don't want the garbage truck to be booked. In the beginning of football the humans were like this too. They went for the ball and nothing else: coloured cards didn't exist, nor the offside rule, nor the away goals were more important than the home ones. In the beginings, people played football like Messi and Totin. Afterwards, everything got very strange.
Right now, everybody seems to care more about the bureaucracy of the sport, its laws. After an important game, people take a week long to talk about the legislation.
Did Juan get booked purposefully so he could miss the next game and play El Clasico? Did Pedro really fake the foul inside the penalty box? Will they allow Pancho to play as stated by the clause number 208 that says that Ernesto is playing for the U-17. Did the coach order to over-water the pitch so the opponents would slip and break their cranium? Did the ballboys disappear when the game was 2-1 and appear again when it was 2-2? Will the club appeal Paco's double yellow card in the tribunal? Did the referee correctly add the minutes that Ricardo lost by protesting the sanction that Ignacio received because of Luis time wasting before the throw in?
No, sir. Dogs don't listen to the radio, don't read the news, don't understand if a game is an unimportant friendly or the final of the championship. Dogs want to take the sponge to their dog bed even if they are tired to death or if the mites are killing them in pain.
Messi is a dog. He breaks records of other times because only until the 50's the dog-men played football. Afterwards, the FIFA invited us to talk about laws and articles, and we forgot how important the sponge is.
And one day a sick boy appears. Like the day a sick monkey stood upright and Mankind history started. This time, it was a kid from Rosario with, apparently, some disabilities. Unable to say one phrase after another, visibly awkward, unable to almost anything related to human guile. But with an impressive talent to keep and control something round and inflated and take it to the net at the end of a green prairie.
If people let him, he wouldn't do anything else. Take that white sphere and put it in between the three posts all the time, like Sisyphus. Over and over again. Guardiola said, after the game in which he scored five goals in a single game: "The day he wants, he will score six"
It wasn't a compliment, it was the objective expression of the symptoms. Lionel Messi is a sick man. It's an illness that moves me, because I loved Totin and now Messi is the last dog-man. And to watch attentively that illness, to see it evolve every Saturday, that's why I'm still in Barcelona even though I'd prefer to be living somewhere else.
Every time I climb the Camp Nou stairs and I suddenly see the brightness of the lightened pitch, that moment that always remind us of our childhood, I say the same thing to myself: you have to be really lucky, Jorge, for liking so much a sport and be contemporaneous of its best version and, on top of that, that the pitch where it happens is so close to you.
I enjoy my double luck. It's my treasure, I'm nostalgic of the present moment every time Messi plays. I'm fanatic of this place in the world and this historic time. Because, I think, on Doomsday all the men that have ever lived will be congregated to talk about football, and one will say: I studied in Amsterdam in 1979, other will say: I was an architect in Sao Paulo in '62, and other one: I was a teenager in Napoli in '87, and my father will say: I travelled to Montevideo in '67, and other one behind him: I listened to the silenced Maracana in 1950.
Everybody will tell their battles with pride until the night is old. And when nobody is left, I will stand and say slowly: I lived in Barcelona in the times of the Dog-Man. And there will be silence. Everybody else will lower their head. And God will appear, dressed for the occasion, and pointing at me will say: "you, the little fat one; you are saved. Everybody else, to the showers."
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