( Image source: http://www.gettyimages.in/detail/news-photo/lionel-messi-of-fc-barcelona-with-the-match-ball-after-news-photo/460102914
https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1982/marquez-photo.html)
‘Great going, son.’
‘Thank you. How have you been?’
‘Ah all well. Happy to get rid of the solitude.’
‘Solitude? So it’s all full of people out there?’
‘Oh no. Not that kind of solitude.’
‘Then?’
‘The solitude of being alone.’
‘You are not alone there now? So it was all empty since 2014?’
‘Haha !! Silly boy. You talk like others. Like what they say for you.’
‘Okay. And what do you mean by that?’
‘You always get compared to Maradona. Maradona’s successor…’
‘Yeah that’s true. Because both of us have been Argentine footballers.’
‘I don’t believe your version of the story because I feel it’s just their version of the story you are compelled to tell.’
‘Nobody forced me to. I don’t think so.’
‘Ohoohoo… harmless little fellow. I know how you react to those tackles. You just smile away. ‘
‘Oh… come on. It’s a part of the game.’
‘And you play on … revealing the magic…’
‘In the way you did … with your words…’
‘So you see… that’s the solitude I was talking about.’
‘I had no intention to create anything. I was just being me.’
‘That’s what we have always been. Just us. We have always been ourselves.’
‘And yes, if that’s magic to people, let’s call that.’
‘Because they don’t know us. That’s why we were different to them. Lo real maravilloso is ours.’
‘True. You never know how you create it.’
‘But when you create it, you can see it, you can feel it.’
‘And it exists in all of us. Some just becomes dominant. Like we did. We all have Carpentiers and Maradonas within us.’
‘And we are not individual magicians.’
‘Yes, that’s the solitude I was talking about.’
‘But it’s nothing new.’
‘Yes, It is . The world of football is unlocked now. Lo real maravilloso of football.’
‘We all did it.’
‘I know. All of us did it. All of us have been doing it. Faces bearing the spirit … evoking the spirit of our culture, our history. ‘
‘And you exist in us. I hear a lot of people waiting to hear from you.’
‘I’m there among all of you … in spirit.’
‘Lo real maravilloso it is !!’
‘Dreams … desires… and our culture… our entity… the empire for once stood still… bowed down … accepted the defeat. ‘
‘Again. In the way they love your words.’
‘Yes, again. Through all odds…’
‘The journey continues then…’
‘Yes, and I hope someday people will start pronouncing our names together.’
‘Yes. Because lo real maravilloso exists in football too. All we need to do is to unlock it.’
‘That’s already been done. One hundred years of solitude championed our creative spirit. And now it’s one hundred years of Copa.’
‘Literature… football… in the spirit of Latin America. Lo real maravilloso. Our culture!!’
‘The Garcia Marquez of football.’
‘Lo real maravilloso of Latin Ameirca.’
Crystallasia 