This weekend will be written one more chapter in the history of "El Clásico". Once again the whole world will stop for 90 minutes to see Barcelona and Real Madrid play glory in the Camp Nou. However, this match comes in the middle of a situation that we are not used to seeing. For the first time in the last 11 years, Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo (one due to injury and the other because he no longer plays for Real Madrid) will not be present in the match that brings together the best players on the planet.
This is a completely atypical scenario for many football fans. Especially the youngest and probably have never seen a Clásico in which the two best players of the modern era have not been. The reality is that Cristiano Ronaldo and Messi marked an era in this sport and took this Clásico to points never seen before, to such an extent that it is strange not to see them face twice a year, one with the Blaugrana shirt and the other with the merengue.
We must go back to December 23, 2007 to meet the last Clásico in which neither Lionel Messi nor Cristiano Ronaldo played. At that time the Argentine star missed the match by one of his continued muscle injuries, while the Portuguese was still a Manchester United player. That game was decided with a lonely goal by Julio Baptista and since then the two best players in the world have always been rivals in this match, until now.
Many things have happened since then, 11 years can turn out to be an eternity. Many say that this Sunday we will live the worst Clásico in years, although I do not think the same, but today we will not talk about it. Today we will focus on what happened in the world in that year 2007 and how much we have changed so far, to understand the dimension of the Messi - Cristiano rivalry and how it changed the way we see football forever.
For example, in that distant 2007 Juventus returned to the Serie A, after the famous Calciopoli scandal that relegated them to the Serie B of Italy for a season after having fixed several games in the seasons 2004-2005 and 2005-2006. That year 2007 was also particular for Jose Mourinho, since at that time he was dismissed for the first time from Chelsea, having won two Premier League
In addition, that year the Spanish football still recovered from the commotion that supposed the tragic death of the player of the Seville, Antonio Puerta. I still have in my memory the images of the defender suffering a heart attack in full game against Getafe. While Julio Baptista scored at Camp Nou, football still did not get used to a life without a Puerta.
But not everything was bad in that year 2007, also good and very curious things happened. For example, at that time Robinho was still good, so much so that he was named as the best player in the Copa America. In addition, that year Roy Makaay marked to Real Madrid the fastest goal of the history of the UEFA Champions, with that much to the 10 seconds. For his part, David Beckham reinvented football by playing his first games in the MLS with the LA Galaxy.
One of the things that struck me most about that year 2007 was the winner of the Golden Boot. Franccesco Totti was credited with that distinction by scoring 26 goals in that season. This seems to me something totally funny and so rare in hindsight. Sometimes I forget that before the arrival of Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, scoring 26 goals in a league was an unprecedented achievement. The Golden Boot won by Totti that year has the particularity that it was the last one a player won by scoring less than 30 goals. After that year Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo and, more recently Luis Suárez, we were badly used to that if you wanted to win this distinction you had to score at least 40 goals. They did not extraordinary something normal.
How football has changed in recent times: in 2007 the greatest achievements of PSG and Manchester City were not to descend from the category, the petrodollars of the sheikhs were still missing from football. In addition, in 2007 the transfer of Zidane to Real Madrid for 75 million euros was still by far the most expensive signing in history. Football has changed so much in such a short time that at that time everyone was shocked because Real Madrid paid 30 million euros for Pepe, making him the most expensive defender in history; while today more than 100 million euros are paid by any player who has had a good season. As we have changed.
But not only football is different, the general world has changed by leaps and bounds. For example, 2007 was the year in which Smartphones came into our lives to change it forever. It seems distant the moment when Steve Jobs presented to the world the first Iphone, the most revolutionary idea and the most important invention in the history of mankind. Today we look back and ask us how humanity survived so many centuries without smartphones. It is curious to go back and see what things were trending in 2007. The boom of social networks had not yet reached us. There was no Twitter, much less Instagram, so we could not know what our idols did at all times. And Facebook back then was not as popular as it came to be. At that time, the most popular was Windows Live Messenger, the latest in communication. And while we were looking forward to the characteristic sound of a new Messenger message, we moved to the rhythm of Rihanna and her "Umbrella".
In 2007, countries like Kosovo and South Sudan were just an idea; regimes like those of Libya, Egypt or Cuba seemed to be endless and Donald Trump was just a real estate mogul.
As we have seen, the world has changed a lot over the last 11 years, since the last time Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo did not play a Clásico. This should make us understand the magnitude of the rivalry and beautiful football dictatorship to these two cracks subjected us the last decade and that has transcended time to transform this into the most beautiful time in the history of football. The sight of two of the greatest players in history to face twice a year in the most important game in the world was a simply apotheosis event. Yes it was. I pity those who did not fully enjoy this sporting rivalry, because history will never see anything like it again. Now we can only wait with sadness the day when neither of them are no longer there and football is no longer the same again.
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