Mbappé's embarrassment

As that song from the yeyé era says, and as was demonstrated in the early hours of Seville, “life is a raffle.”

King Felipe VI can attest to that like few others. His end was more than foreseeable. What wasn't on the general agenda was that the Pope , a huge football fan in honor of his Canchero origins, died on Easter Monday, and that they decided to hold his funeral on the same day the Catalans and Real Madrid were playing for the Copa del Rey, in one of the most eagerly awaited editions due to, in an unexpected twist of the historical script, the Madrid victimhood. That's what living in a conspiratorial world is like.

When thinking about conspiracies, you have to put yourself in the monarch's shoes. This morning, he stood side by side with and greeted US President Donald Trump , the world's conspirator-in-chief. And that evening, he sat in the grandstand at La Cartuja stadium, where there was no shortage of fringe theories—those that defy any reality to justify failures.

So the King went from the Vatican solemnity to the raffle that his final became. In a two-for-one situation, there were several rides on the emotional roller coaster that the match became. It was worth it for the Culés to wait eleven years for their team to take revenge for that race in which Bale overpowered Bartra, who lost the match and his place at Barça .

It was worth it because the pilot dog didn't fall on the side of the merengues with the same tickets they usually play, or so the legend goes.

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History is written with crooked lines. Real Madrid complained about the referees (what would they say if Ceballos's slap on Lamine or Rüdiger 's penalty on Ferran Torres were reversed?) and Barça staged an epic comeback, the same epic feat attributed to Real Madrid. The Blaugrana's success tasted better because the tie was forged with five minutes left, and the victory came four minutes before the end of extra time. Seen from Manhattan, it was a return to the past. Fans wearing blue and maroon shirts gathered at the bar across the street again, something that hadn't happened since the glory days of Messi, Xavi, and Iniesta.

The New York Times called Jules Koundé an "unlikely hero" for his slam. Opposing him was Mbappé, his national team colleague, who managed to revive the Real Madrid fans, despite being recently whistled by their fans, and make them believe that La Liga is still in the cards and that they can win in a few days at Montjuïc. The embarrassment for Mbappé, an extraordinary footballer, is that he seems to be carrying the jinx.