Espanyol: the past no longer exists

Lillo in Cornellà. I remember one Saturday morning in a RCDE Stadium recently opened in which the Spanish organized training sessions for coaches. The star of that presentation was Jose Manuel Lillo, and the auditorium was packed with young people with notebooks, pens, and their ears wide open. The now assistant to the Manchester City He did not stop talking for an hour, wandering between the divine and the human, turning over ideas as if he were a sophist. He spoke of models, systems, relationships between players … He destroyed topics and built realities. But, before saying goodbye, he gave one last (approximate) reflection that left everyone unsettled: “What I have explained to you is no longer worth anything. It is very likely that tomorrow I will think differently. Or maybe right now I think differently. Everything evolves”. Some believed that Lillo would explain the secret of the game to them, but they went home with the feeling of having been scammed or at least doubting even their own existence again.

There is no past. His last reflection left in the air an idea that could well be applied to this Espanyol that has achieved the goal of the season, promotion; the title is a substitute that opens a debate between obligation and irrelevance. Healthy dialogue between parrots, but that will not alter the reality of a squad that has already done what was required without too much suffering. But back to Lillo and his idea. It is clear: you cannot live from the past. There are no dogmas, these disappear with the passage of the parties because another reality is built, like a movie of Christhoper Nolan. Espanyol has risen, but its credibility remains at stake in every game, and in the same way that this good year has erased the disaster of the previous year, the counter can be reset to zero.

Another reality. The category will be more demanding, fans will be able to return to the stadiums, there will be players who will debut in the First Division, others who return a year older and ways of playing that will have to be modified because Espanyol will no longer be the team with the best squad or with more players. decision of the championship. Even Vicente Moreno will find a more lively dressing room than the funeral he ran into last August, and again the opinion of the environment will be determined by the sensations of the preseason. The 'déja vu' of each summer, which must be analyzed looking to the future and not to the past or “decide on a player by what you think he is going to give you and not by what he has given you”.

Everything evolves. And that same 'déja vu', the one every summer, was the one I visualized while Espanyol played against Tenerife in a match without too much tension, which ended with another goal from RdT and a strange expulsion of Darder, and with the feeling that the squad knows that they have already done their homework and are in another reality, perhaps the one that Lillo said, because all that mathematical demand that led him to be 15 games in a row without losing has evaporated before Cartagena and Tenerife, with the exception of PonferradinaBecause as there is no past, the team look to the future. Or not. Perhaps now, that I have finished the article, I think differently. Everything evolves.