Virtue may be in the middle, but it is difficult for team sports fans to retain in their memory those who did not stand out. Yes, they will, curiously, with those that shone in the opposite direction: the packages. After a reasonable amount of time has passed—which usually involves several years, such that the people who made a mistake in the signing no longer belong to the entity—the fan begins a curious mental process of romanticizing failure. He dedicates the gatherings with his friends to praising the non-existent virtues of the athlete in question, they laugh out loud at his mistakes, they celebrate his witticisms; It might even seem like they miss him. But we should see them years ago, when those fiascos wore their teams’ shirts.
All clubs have their own archive of errors that, over time, have become part of the collection of the stands. The package album (ECC) arrives to condense in a book the disasters of 20 of the most historic teams in Spanish football. Although it focuses on sports – the cover is occupied by Winston Bogarde and Robert Prosinecki – it also offers a selection of the worst shirt designs, references, ambassadors, the different and unclassifiable characters that fly over the clubs, as well as a selection of phrases that It is no longer known if they went from the popular language to football or vice versa. The texts of the book are by Alvaro Velasco and Inaki San Roman. The illustrations, by Lorenzo Montatore, Pablo Rios and Antonio Hitos.
The book offers a peculiar perspective of the last decades of Spanish football through a sentimental journey in which disappointment is the common thread. It is a manual on managing expectations. A way of understanding that, seen in perspective, almost everything in this life has a nice side. That all the clubs in the world share miseries – although they all believe they are the navel of the world. A book to remember. A book to laugh at. Now that they no longer play on your team, of course.
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Source: EL PAIS
