The beauty of an El Clasico without Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo

Around the 23rd minute of El Clasico, after Arthur managed to keep then pass the ball to a teammate while surrounded by two Real Madrid defenders, Phil Schoen commented that Arthur was “wearing Iniesta’s number but showed flashes of Xavi.” It was a rather innocuous comment that inadvertently revealed something wonderful about soccer and the truth of the first El Clasico in over a decade without either Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo.

A few days ago, Jon Mackenzie wrote an article about Tiki-Taka and the time when the world of soccer thought that the end of the sport, meaning the perfection of tactics, had arrived. In 2009, Pep Guardiola declared that, “The future is bleak, because there is no way we can improve on what we have achieved so far” when Barcelona were to face Estudiantes in the Club World Cup. That same year, Alfredo Relano wrote that, “Barcelona have shown that perfection is possible. There is no antidote to their exquisite football.”

But by 2012, that perfect style of soccer that had been spread by Guardiola and used by Spain to conquer the world from 2008 to 2012 was embarrassed by Holland at the 2014 World Cup when they beat Spain, 5-1. As Tiki-Taka took over soccer, it also gave rise to tactics that were designed to counter it. Though it happened slowly, the perfect style of soccer was undone and revealed to be just another story in the progress of the sport, not an end.

Mackenzie concluded that:

“There can be no end of football, then, because the game is inherently dialectical — structured around opposites. The history of football bears this out. When a new approach emerges, no matter how dominant it might appear, it’s only a matter of time before a new style undermines it. There can be no resolution here, no final synthesis, only a never-ending series of contradictions, generating endless new possibilities.”

Schoen’s comment about Arthur reminded me of one particular thing I like about soccer that differentiates it from many American sports. Though the NFL, NBA, NHL, and MLB often retire jerseys, world soccer doesn’t except in special cases — say a superhuman contribution to a club like that of Paolo Maldini at AC Milan or Bobby Moore at West Ham, or to commemorate tragedy. It’s not that the shirt is bigger than the player, which is an overused cliche in the sport, but rather that the players, no matter how good or bad, are part of the same story of the shirt or number that they wear. There is no end to the sport, just a story that’s always changing.

Before Andres Iniesta wore the No. 8 shirt, there was Ludovic Giuly, Phillip Cocu, Albert Celades , Hristo Stoichkov, Iván de la Peña, Guillermo Amor, Pep Guardiola, Eusebio, Bernd Schuster, Tente Sánchez, and Sándor Kocsis. Arthur has come after Iniesta, and after Arthur there will be many more No. 8s. In most cases, there is no perfect player with whom the shirt must be retired.

There’s an anxiety to this constant progress of soccer and shirts. The fact that life goes on means that the things and players that are important to us — the ones that mark our time in this world, which seems perfect and the best because it is ours — will come and go and be replaced by another generation of players, some better, some worse. For players like Messi, Xavi, Iniesta, and Sergio Busquets, to retire their numbers would be to make them a permanent part of history. It would mark an end. It would be to cling to the idea that some players must be above the forward progress of life and the sport, and to deny the ephemerality of things. As much as it is an act of honor, it’s also an act of fear.

Sunday was the first time that Real Madrid and Barcelona had met in more than ten years without one of Messi or Ronaldo playing. It was odd to watch. Ronaldo and Messi had been opposing forces in La Liga for so long that their presences defined the identities of their clubs. Even the narratives of their identities — Messi the quiet, shy genius, and Ronaldo the powerful, arrogant hard worker — were created to drive their rivalry. For many of us, the timespan when they were pitted against each other was the best in the sport.

The end of the Messi and Ronaldo era is sad. It was one of the most wonderful things that has ever happened. But the end also creates the space for a new part of the continuous story of these two teams and the sport to be written. There’s no need to burden what’s to come with what has gone. This new part of the story doesn’t have to be representative of the future and it doesn’t have to be beholden to the past. This part, like any player who inherits a shirt, will only be responsible for itself in its time.

Without the two players that had defined it for so long, this El Clasico was wonderful in its own way. In the first half, Barcelona dominated the game and scored two goals through Coutinho and a Luis Suarez penalty. In the second half, Real Madrid changed their tactics and put five defenders in the back to rattle Barcelona. Marcelo scored, and numerous chances were created that could have given Real Madrid the victory. But just as Real Madrid looked to be the dominant team, Luis Suarez scored twice more and the introduction of Ousmane Dembele led to an Arturo Vidal header that cemented a 5-1 embarrassment of Julen Lopetegui’s men.

For Barcelona, this victory can be seen as a sign that they will be fine when Messi finally retires or leaves the club. They have quality players who can fill the void. Real Madrid’s outlook is more bleak. They have struggled without Ronaldo, and they don’t look to be getting better any time soon. But if life and the sport teach anything, it’s the lesson that Schoen referenced just by describing Arthur’s movements. There is no end in the sport. There is no final victory or defeat. Things will change, and by next year’s El Clasico, the story will be completely different from this one.