The place of Sergio Ramos, by Juan Carlos Rivero

While more than 60,000 people attended a turnaround that seemed impossible at the Bernabéu, two eyes contemplated a scenario that until recently was theirs. Sergio Ramos sat in one of the VIP boxes located behind the benches. There he once again heard the clamor of his usual stadium on European nights. He wasn’t called up due to injury, so he couldn’t hear his name over the PA system. He could not measure the response of the fans that cheered him so much. What he could do is remember, perhaps that tie against Borussia Dortmund that Madrid brought uphill from Germany.

They had lost 4-1, with a poker from Lewandowski, but in the second leg time stopped when Sergio Ramos headed a ball close to the post that could have made it 3-0, in a night full of connection and energy. Similar to the one Ramos experienced sitting in a blue coat and tie on a seat at the Bernabéu last Wednesday.

It’s hard for even him to know what’s going on in his first year in a strange town, on a soulless team, and far from everything he so admired and loved. Seeing him, I guess that Sergio was not in his place, his was to be making boats with his usual companions. He will play or not. He, the protagonist of so many European feats, finals included, was able to think for a moment, and if not one day he will, that he should have stayed in Madrid, without price, because what was lost on Wednesday is not paid for with millions of euros, what he lost was enjoying another unrepeatable moment in his long career. Priceless.