none of your "sports curse" meow meow athletes will ever be ansu fati btw. the situation with him and lamine is so bizarrely tragic, you don't even know. that's the doppelgänger who stole his life. that's the tulpa made from barça's unrealistic hopes and dreams for ansu that were obviously never going to come true. except they did! just not for him
imagine you're 10 years old and you join the academy of the strongest club in the world. your coaches all call you a special talent. they say if you work hard, you'll play with neymar and messi one day. maybe that should sound too good to be true, but it doesn't to you. you're a hard worker. you fight through a broken leg at 13, knowing you can make it.
you're 16 when you make the first team. by then, barça's shine is tarnished. the team goes trophyless your breakout year, for the first time you can remember. the money runs out and messi leaves. but you're still here. you break records and score wonder goals. pundits gush about you, comparing you to the greats. they say you could win the ballon d'or one day. if barça has lost its old star, maybe you can be the next best thing. you're a rare light in the darkness for fans.
but then your meniscus tears.
you leave the pitch in tears and have a surgery. then another. then two more. your advisors say this is the best way to keep your spot on the roster. and you just want to play again as soon as possible. so in recovery, you work hard. very hard. when the recovery stalls, people say you must have worked too hard. you're sidelined for a season, but you claw your way back to the bench.
the club say they still believe in you. to prove it, they give you the 10. maybe they hope the number will give you confidence, that believing hard enough will make it real. but your body refuses to work like it used to. you're 19 and injuries plague you. old friends from la masia start over you, breaking the records you once broke. the coach even brings on a 15 year old kid to play real betis (the club whose defender ruined your knee). at 20, your team finally wins the league, but you watch mostly from the bench, the stands, the hospital. you can barely claim more credit for the team's victory than that 15 year old can.
and now your club really gets impatient with you. you're still on star wages and they want to renegotiate. but you can't, because you know you'll never see that kind of money again. the fairytale is over for you now. wonderkids never work out, there's no next messi. the 10 branded on your back was just a marketing ploy.
rotting on the bench is getting old. spain might be your home, but you can't stay there. you go on loan to england. you get minutes for a while, then the coach benches you. he says you don’t work hard enough. so you sit by and watch brighton play. sometimes you watch barça too, just passing time (old habits die hard). but even if you don't watch, you can't avoid the hype around their new wonderkid. nobody wants to talk about anything else. they’re calling him the next messi.
no club will pay your wages, so when the loan ends, you go back to spain. you sit on the bench and watch the next messi start. you watch him break records, win trophies and get ballon d'or shouts. cruise ships pull into port, full of people who will never know your name. catalunya is not your home. but you don't have anywhere else to go.
