It was love at first sight. Nobody doubts it. I still remember the first time I saw him play Deportivo Independiente Medellin At the Atanasio Girardot, 18 years ago, and I can’t get over the way those red and blue flags were waved.
I cannot overcome the passion of its people and their love for the team that bears the same name in our city. I can’t get over the first time I sang “they call me the matador, I’m from the Medallo”. Impossible not to fall in love.
Nor do I forget the giant that that afternoon of family soccer, with my uncles and cousins, guarded the three powerful sticks. He was a boy who by that time had already won two titles with the DIM: the one that took away our 45-year drought and the one that made us celebrate against our backyard rival.
And that boy is today the one who gave us back the illusion. He no longer guards our bow, now David Gonzalez, from the bench, he could give us a new title after five years of league drought.
(Also read:
– Alejandro Restrepo and David González: time for young technicians
– Pereira: these are the keys to success that lead him to the final)
González could also be bigger than he already is, since we also did not forget how he defended the goal in that 2016 championship, when we won our last title on Father’s Day.
They say that being a DIM fan gives character. Those of us who love this team, which is as paisa as the muleteers, carry more sorrows than joys, but these days we only think of glory and, as the dean of Colombian soccer always does, we are excited because we know that the day of the back and our people will shout “Long live the DIM, the Powerful”.
How not to be if the team showed what it is to be a paisa, what these colors mean, what our city represents. We have the same name for a reason.
They gave us up for dead in the regular phase and we ended up in the first places. They gave us up for dead in the home runs and on a rainy night, with the push of our fans who still have the flu, we went back to Golden Eagles a game that seemed to have no solution. And it is that as the poet Darío Jaramillo Agudelo, one of our most famous fans, once said: “DIM is that unfading and fiery red flower”. And it still is.
This semester the players understood what these colors that have 109 years of history mean —although we started playing in white back in 1913— and what this fan that never stops encouraging, but never stops suffering either.
That’s why today we have to go out on the pitch and tee off. With respect for the rival, but with more respect for this hundred-year-old institution and for this fan that has left everything for his players. It’s time to win, to surrender, to fight for the victory that will give us the first step to yet another title.
David, without a doubt, gave us back the illusion. It’s about time he gave us back the glory. It’s not just him, it’s his guys, who we hope will leave everything on the field.
(Also:
– Medellin vs. Pereira: new change in programming for the final
– Pereira qualifies for his first final in Colombian soccer and the city explodes)
Mosquera, Cadavid, Arregui, Marrugo, Ricaurte, Pipe, Pons, Cambindo, we count on you and the others so that this illusion ends with the glass at home on candlelight day. That we light red and blue candles.
We are also entrusted to the Divine Child and to Gardel, who is as much a part of the history of our city as the DIM. It is up to us to resort to all the fighting forces. Oh, and of course, there are us, the fans who haven’t slept for several days, who are with you shouting, as always: “They call me the matador, I’m from the Medallo”.
Opinion
matthew garcia
Editor of EL TIEMPO and fan of Medellín
@teomagar
#call #matador #Medallo #opinion