Juan folded his white and green scarf and placed it gently next to his wife, Loli. It had been a few years since he’d been gone, but Juan’s ritual was always the same when he got back from football. Two scarves together.
She sat down in her seedy, cramped chair with those beautiful crochet coasters she had knitted and turned on the radio.
At 76, he’s had good and bad times watching his team, but this year has been particularly tough and on top of what happened today.
The fact is that from his place at the north end he could not clearly see whether there were hands, and therefore, in favor of a penalty and, of course, zero to three, but comments from subscription neighbors left. no doubt about it, it was a penalty.
Loli wouldn’t miss it. He had good eyesight and above all knew the rules very well. For years, Juan’s relatives had been interested in taking him to that old field surrounded by palm trees in their neighborhood.
That’s where he met her. Juan remembered that moment perfectly. The team’s star just passed a few of his opponents and crouched just in front of the goal line and headbutted the ball on his knees. The pitch collapsed and he hugged his father. Her eyes met Loli’s as she looked around to find someone else to share her joy with.
As memories flashed through his mind, the local station repeatedly insisted that the deportation wasn’t fair, and he agreed with Juan because he had heard it from everyone in the stadium. No one could explain why that involuntary hand for a cornered ball and several meters from the field meant a red card.
Another game lost in downtime, like the ones in the first episode, with a penalty (up to three, I thought) for some hands that didn’t whistle. “How unfair”, “always the same”, “always to us”.
Juan had turned sad. In the final moments of the match, his own tension and the tension of the match had come to a very high point. Choosing not to take the bus, as he put it, “because of the damn bug,” walking home to rest worked.
An hour and a little after the game, he couldn’t help remembering how he disappeared in his apartment next to the old football field. And he thought of his father. And at Loli. And swallowed.
Napping, he picked up the newspaper from the nightstand and glanced at the sports pages. Elche CF played away the following week.
“I’m going to Manolo’s bar tomorrow to have him reserve the usual table for us. I won’t miss that game.”