Remember the founder

There are fortuitous connections between Joan Gamper's life and the club's current situation. Gamper was a case of generous adaptation and philanthropic grandeur with an interpretation of the country in which he chose to live. He Catalanized his name, learned the language with a natural ease that we would wish for many expats and professionals arriving from other countries, and demonstrated a bold association that, through his own means, contradicted the cliché of indigenous stinginess.

He never ceased to be devoted to the founding principles of the sport, and with the same honor he demonstrated when Primo de Rivera's dictatorship acted harshly against the club, he left this world prematurely—he was only 52—feeling depressed, ruined, and, in typical Barcelona fashion, disappointed. The images that survive of his funeral are striking. The crowd expressed a mixture of sadness, respect, and gratitude, a sentiment characteristic of causes that transcend the will of the founding fathers.

With the captain's armband, Ter Stegen knew how to close his case.

Have the principles that drove Gamper to found the club been prostituted? Yes, but, who knows, perhaps to compensate, the global dimension of the club's identity has multiplied to infinity and beyond. Yesterday, the trophy honoring the founder had to be played in front of a select minority of spectators, with some tickets priced like cocaine stashes and a financial situation that turns the circus-like juggling of the plates into a simulated survival trick.

Far from being depressed, the current president, Joan Laporta, is leading this moment of daring adventure with a personal sense of risk and loyalty that, in exchange for being impervious to outside criticism, assumes responsibility. For example, resolving, even if only provisionally, the Ter Stegen case, which the goalkeeper sought to close in his speech.

For days, in the various talk shows he participates in, Laporta's collaborator Lluís Carrasco has been repeating that, given the circumstances, the only way to undo this knot of pride and misunderstandings was for Laporta to take the bull by the horns and win the presidency. Although yesterday's crowd wasn't exactly the same as the one that will one day (no one knows when) fill the new Camp Nou, the boos for Ter Stegen were more painless than token. It's a minor punishment compared to the slander of those who for months have fueled the spread of fallacies about the goalkeeper.

The scenographic flaws that characterized Camp Nou and Montjuïc remain. The stridency, understood as an unpunished form of alienation and as a cover-up against any hypothetical outbreak of protest, the verbosity of the speakers —with parity, lest we violate protocols—and the presence of a mascot that the Asian tour has consolidated as a symbol of identity. Inevitably, and because it's always good to remember our ancestors, I couldn't help but imagine Gamper's face if he saw the hyperactive cat that, like the flag, now unites us.