Life will continue but the right bank of the white and red river of Nervión will no longer have the light that Jesús Navas, the last great hero of our beloved Sevillian football, magnetized. The penultimate Andalusian gentleman who once outgrew the ball, but never the game. The measure. Let’s not even mention the competition. He never stained that, your shield, which he fell in love with with kisses and smells. A Spanish standard that made the derby its flag and the Sevilla Fútbol Club its first beam and its last homeland, because it was born a Sevillista and it will be a Sevillalista until death. That “Jesusito” whom Pablo Blanco signed many generations ago in the company of Wilfred from UD Los Palacios and for whom Sevillismo crosses itself every night as if it were the last time it can hear his word from the pulpit of his right hand, verb consecrated tradition that has spread throughout Europe in the company of those who considered themselves disciples. He is a full-fledged saint. What he worked and sweated on his forehead in such a Sevillian tomato plant has become fresh slippery water through every pore of his skin—tears, crying, grief—because with him we have witnessed the sublimation and exhaustion of an exceptional professional who has put at risk body and soul above what is ultimately not so important if we compare it with what his legacy will entail. His true heritage. Values above any individual and collective challenge, just as Rafael Nadal or Andrés Iniesta showed us in their day, very worthy models to turn to in schools and faculties, whom I place at the same level as this elf who in his memory and in my own memory he will always dribble puddles and defenses of any height. Everything he had, which is what he always dreamed of and much more, he put at the disposal of that Sevillismo that built the past, which today For today, the present and the one that will be born in the future leads, that red and white family that if it has agreed on something in recent years it has been to enjoy watching it grow smile by smile, play by play, since the town began to boy’s hissing. Because there are children and grandchildren who have their room full of pictures of that quasi-youth that stood out—t-shirt on the inside, shame on the outside—and now they boast that the child who has won the most with the Spanish team in history has become a father both for them and for their first fry: Jesús and Romeo, who one day will be aware that dad was the biggest thing that has given birth to that red womb that is the Utrera highway since long before it was will bid. A providential husband for Alejandra, her daily conscience. Loyal and noble brother who Marco and José Mari advised so much. An exemplary son, there is no doubt, for Paco and Aurora, his role models. The Genoese eyes that the Divine Child narrows when the person who cuddles him responds to the name of Nieves, Mother and custodian of Los Palacios. Grandpa Antonio’s favorite grandson; Oh, Antonio. Who remained silent from the first row of the third ring when the house of all the Sevillistas shouted his last name very loudly, whispering that the one that crossed that hallway for the last time was his blood when those who never fail shouted it to the entire world. Because there has not been nor will there be more pride in Nervión. I find more admiration in those turbulent times in which he has had to live, both emotionally due to what he suffered away from his family at the beginning, and at the end of his career leading from the discretion, restraint and elegance of a Sevilla so complex, raising its last Europa League in Budapest, or so many other images in which it went down in history suffering and winning. Fighting with closed fists. Because one has always seen greater glory in human pain than in the fame of success. Navas will continue to be Navas until the end of his days as a professional. But no one ignores at this point in the century in Nervión that God has always accompanied him every step, which is why his parents thanked heaven for each season lived as soon as they were given the opportunity to tell how he could continue making history at 39 years old. . Nobody in their right mind could bet that the last goal that Navas was going to witness at the Ramón Sánchez-Pizjuán with underwear and boots was going to be scored by another ’16’ like the one worn by Manu Bueno at Sevilla Atlético, the same number which he has defended with honor to the pride of his remembered friend Puerta, who surely had a lot to do with that divided ball that luckily fell openly to the Jerez midfielder to finish off Celta. Luckily? God’s times are always perfect. That rejection reminded me if possible of the hit that Makukula hit to waste time and stop the game from being played in the Sevilla-Schalke 04 match that stopped European time, or rather made Nervión’s minute hand go crazy, and whose ball from that UEFA semi-final ended up 16 years later and by fair chance of providence on the shelf of a little boy named Aitor Puerta, the son that Antonio never knew, for More than that he has that left foot that will draw direct volleys at our interlinings. Another white and red throat that surely screamed like any Sevillista when he saw how his friend said goodbye to the joy that José Antonio Reyes represented for him. The spirit of the Utrerano put a measured and pointed pass in the farewell at the elf’s house, at whom he smiled as only he could, because he lived it in his own boots. A club and a shared passion for being the one who extended once, twice and now always and still an infinite play like the one that made us eternal in Johannesburg. The peak of our first star and the last Euro Cup. Navas’ kiss to the round heart of grass with the jipio in his hands and the surrender in the area where Antonio fell is perhaps one of the most exciting things that any journalist can tell. It will be precisely through moments like this that one comes to understand that no matter how much the final day arrives, the last time someone visits Nervión in an official match, there will be idols, legends will be told, myths will be glimpsed that may cease to be many. things one day, maybe they will lose everything, but they will never stop being Sevillistas. Sevillistas until death.
#Ignacio #Liaño #Bernal #Sevillista #death
