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He shouldn’t be angry.
He wasn’t a pibe, a status he had graduated from the day he first trimmed down his hair and refused to let it grow. He had no reason to be yelling at his coach over the phone. He would’ve thought he had let out all his anger with his final celebration at those assholes otherwise known as Valencia fans. Nobody touched his younger protégés, whether they were Neymar or Paulo Dybala. And having defended the former on Saturday, now he was defending the latter. This time, the concha de su madre and hijo de mil putas was none other than his own coach, Edgardo Bauza.
“Patón, you had those names since when? Since he was first tackled into the ground?”
“Look, a coach needs to be prepared…”
“Prepared my ass” Leo was usually shy and would never have spoken to Sabella, Maradona, even Tata like that. But Paulo was his youngster, and there was no way he was dropping him. “You didn’t even wait a day. You did what they wanted you to do”.
“I will not-”
“THE DELAY WAS ON PURPOSE! They didn’t have days off, they had a match in the middle of the week! But they delayed the tests so that the recovery time would stretch, so that he never came. And you let them! You didn’t pressure them! Do you even know how much we want to play for Argentina? How much he wants to? And you don’t care!”
“Maybe he should’ve known better before trying to play you and score from the midfield. I realised he doesn’t work like that”.
Leo wasn’t normally a violent person. But he pictured that recent death from “The Walking Dead” he’d been spoiled about, and figured el Patón could have pulled a good Glenn.
“Anyway, Pocho is coming. He’ll cheer you up. That’s why I called him up, anyway”.
Lionel took deep breaths. He had a lot to say- well, a lot to punch. But he was tired, he’d been a few hours on a Paris-Barcelona flight and given the news he just wanted to lay down and drink some mate.
“I’ll see you for the break, then. Bye”. he hung up. He had thought he’d never become that kind of captain, but with his youngsters things were different, although Lucho had always respected Ney, unlike Patón. He couldn’t picture the Míster doing something like that, but if he did, he would’ve jumped right at his throat, the same way he had done to the ref, to Patón… He was just like that. He’d found his inner captain with his youngsters. No difference…
Except, of course, the voice messages.
He placed the mate leaves into his cup as his mind wandered back to the days after the last Copa, when he had decided the national team wasn’t for him. It had seemed obvious. Without him, they’d defeated Chile in the group stage. With him, they’d lost a shot at a penalty. He had decided it would be best if he retired, his haters could celebrate as much as they wanted to, they were right anyway.
What he certainly didn’t expect were the massive demonstrations of love, the Spotify playlist, people standing in the rain in the middle of Avenue 9 de Julio, the President asking for his return… and the voice messages. The WhatsApp group chat the national team had had been loaded with messages, and some of his mates like Kun and Pipa had also made personal contact (probably not daring to phone him after they so very often left him to his own devices). But then he got them.
He wasn’t surprised el pibe had managed to find his personal number, after all he’d already been called up for the national team and was in the group chat as a result (the only one missing was that Icardi wanker). But the messages were quite the surprise. For instance, taking the time to speak rather than just write. Was he seeking some intimacy? Leo wasn’t good at reading people’s intentions, but he had felt closer to him upon listening to that deep, velvet-like voice with all the missing “s” from the Cordobese accent. And he hadn’t met the young man personally yet.
“Hi Leo, it’s Paulo… Paulo Dybala. I don’t know if you have my number, either way, it’s here, ha… I watched the match, I had to stay up. I’m sorry, it hurts, I’m not saying as a fellow player, I mean it as a fan…”
“But che, you can’t quit… We need you! You give us direction. I’m not calling off anyone, I’m not blaming anyone, the press always does that but they don’t know, they haven’t gone beyond playing in the streets, they have no idea how this is. So don’t give in, okay? Please don’t”.
“Wow, I feel weird saying that to you… Sorry if I sound abrasive, but I can’t take a world without you. I don’t even want to think of you retiring from the game”.
“Look, I can play with you. I’d like to! I haven’t done so bad, and if I make it through in the Olympics, Tata will keep considering me. Maybe, I’d like to help you. To pull a wall with you would be so cool! I want to help you. I want to lift a trophy with you. I want to assist you, for real. But you have to be there. I can’t think of spending my whole career without playing with you at all. Please, Leo, stay”.
The months went by and things didn’t go as expected. In the end, young Dybala hadn’t been allowed to go to the Olympics, as well as many other youngsters, AFA seemed close to crumbling down, Tata quit… But the voice messages never left his mind, the little laughs, the strength, the will very close to desperation… He hadn’t been able to use his standard “thanks, but I made up my mind” reply to him. He’d merely texted “I’ll think about it”, and even that felt too cold. But he hadn’t lied. He was thinking about it. He had kept thinking about it as the President spoke, as Juventus refused to allow Paulo to go the Olympics, as millions gathered outside Obelisco, as he remembered his own Olympic gold medal and the joy it had given him, as the playlist was shared, as he wondered what he could do to make up for the disappointment, as he decided to avoid being another source of disappointment, to Paulo and to everyone writing #NoTeVayasLio.
So, when Bauza first came to see him in Barcelona, to try and change his mind, he betrayed his inner promise on what kind of captain he wanted to be for the first time.
“Che, are you calling up that pibe, Dybala?”
“Well, I hadn’t given it much thought… Do you want him?”
“Yes”.
***
Lionel would have lied if he had said everything had gone smoothly in the football level since then. In fact, as he poured the water into the mate, he tried to think of one moment they’d been together, the first 45 minutes of the match against Uruguay. The walls. The passes. He felt bad for Kun, who was more or less his best friend in the national team, and Pipa, who was also part of their small Olympic group. But they weren’t in the best streaks- best to admit it and work through it than deny it like AFA was doing or worse, calling them corpses or zombies like the press and some fans had grown fond of doing seriously and they had eventually also begun to do, ironically- and it showed, as they weren’t even called up the first time he returned. But in those happy days in Ezeiza, before the injury aggravated and Paulo… well, they had bonded. They spent their nights playing FIFA, sometimes talking about their lives. It wasn’t like they had gotten time to become incredibly close, but they got along well.
“I actually went to Camp Nou once!” Paulo had told him once, as they went in line for breakfast.
“I hope we did good then” Leo had replied, looking down to his tray.
“You certainly did!” Paulo had laughed, to then look sadly at his own tray with orange juice. “I wish I could still go to other matches without arising transfer rumours. That time made a bit of a revolt, imagine now”.
Leo had looked at him. It was something he’d never really had, despite all the amazingness of his own story. He’d never really risen from a smaller team into a Big one.
“Wow, that must be hard, I guess, I don’t really know…”
“And you shouldn’t, you’re right where you deserve to be” another smile, and Leo first wondered if he was imagining things or you could hear Paulo’s smile in his voice. And then the return to gloominess. “But for us mortals… I won’t lie, I love where I am, I couldn’t play with Carlitos but I have all those mates, it’s fantastic, and to hear people who were once in awe of Del Piero chant my name…”
“You miss the relative normality” Leo had said, looking at him. He had found a pair of emerald eyes, against a cherry-tree like tone in the face that made the combination endearing. The eyes looked touched, figured out. Mutual understanding, they called it.
“I guess” he looked down at the tray again and placed a Nutella package in it. He then searched his eyes again, and found them. Leo had in fact expected their return. “But I wouldn’t give this up. It’s worth it. The pressure can be shit, but yeah” Another laugh, and Leo had laughed back.
“I know”. They understood one another.
But then the referee proved his idiocy, making Paulo cry, making him mad of the injustice, how had he dared. When not even Masche could hold his cool, he got confirmation for his rage. Then the pain, the inner knowledge he wouldn’t make it to Venezuela either, the talk in the locker room, tranquilizing Paulo, so fearful of Uruguay making a comeback because Luisito, and his agreement, a tiny bad joke (“I like the guy, but he could use a bad day”) and Paulo chuckling, everyone going to the bus while juggling the awaiting press, them being alone in the locker room, discussing what would happen in Mérida, how it would go for their mates, wishing they could be there, Leo ranting about the ref, Paulo calming him down…
“You didn’t have to insist going out there, they could have sent you off…”
“To hell with him! He needed to know, what sort of hijo de puta plays Mr. Fairness when it helps him? He’s Chilean, I shouldn’t be surprised”.
“I was too irresponsible, I shouldn’t have gone for it given I had a yellow card”.
“Don’t apologise, we need balls for this”.
Getting closer.
“That’s what we lacked for the last three finals, and you’ve got it, okay? The ref was a concha su madre, you did nothing wrong”.
Getting very close.
“You mean it” It was probably supposed to be a question, but he sounded like he had discovered a truth. A pleasing truth. He got closer and closed his eyes slowly, like there was nothing else he could do. He seemed to accept what would happen.
“I fucking mean it”. His own eyes very close to shutting down, to accept.
But then the realisation. And fear. And his own idiocy.
“They must be waiting for us”.
“For the last time until October” Paulo had replied, and smiled. But this smile had had bits of sadness, and Leo wanted to punch himself. This was worse than replying to the voice messages with a short text. God only knew what kept the pibe around, his football ability couldn’t be that good to be worth it.
They hadn’t seen each other since, and for a while Leo dreaded further communication. He’d been an idiot, but they’d only interacted for a few days, it couldn’t be… But would it have hurt? The chemistry was there. He’d asked Masche for advice. Kun had been acting weird lately and Geri would have scolded him, but Masche would get straight to the point. Besides, he had scolded himself the whole flight back to Barcelona. He didn’t need more shit.
“Well, pibe, I’ll give you one thing: you can’t fall in Love in a few days”.
“Thanks”.
“But the chemistry was there. I’m not saying you should have asked him to date you, but he might fear you don’t like him that way”.
“Well, I don’t know if he really feels that way or just looks up to me. Either way, it would be wrong to take advantage of him”.
“But what do you feel?”
Leo had taken a deep breath.
“I liked talking to him… He’s very mature for a 22-year-old, I wasn’t that woke when I was his age-”
“You were winning Ballon d’Ors” Masche chuckled. Even the mature ones could crack jokes.
“Ha, maybe, but he knows exactly what he wants and how he wants it. It’s.. aim, you know? You could talk to him like an equal. He understood ”.
“If he had come in the summer like Bartomeu wanted you guys would have been together already”.
“Haha”.
“But seriously, it might not be love yet but there’s something you could nurture. But call the pibe. Reassure him. Remember Gonzalo is there as well, and I have seen them getting closer”.
“Imagine that- first he ruins your chances at World Cup championship and now your shot in love!” someone joked. Leo and Masche turned around. Geri, smiling widely.
“Okay, I’ll call him” Leo had said. Masche had nodded in agreement. So had Geri, who had apparently eavesdropped the whole conversation.
“But do it now. I love seeing Marc-André and Rafa all lovey-dovey, but the more lovebirds in the dressing room, the better” Geri said.
“You idiot, the pibe is in another team!” Leo had cried.
“By now…” Geri had winked as he left the room. It was a normally fun gesture but Leo had felt distressed for some reason.
That night was the first Leo phoned Paulo. He didn’t text him. He didn’t send him a voice message. He phoned him.
“I’m sorry, Paulo”.
“What, why?”
“About not kissing you… it’s not that I don’t like you, it’s that…”
“Che, it’s okay!” again the laughter, but not in a mean way, rather sweetly. “It was the moment, we’ve only just met, ha”.
“Haha, well, I was worried you could be mad at me, and no wonder, I was a jerk”.
“You weren’t. I was going too fast. I needed to be held back”.
“Good”. He would’ve said friends? but for once his common sense kicked in and decided that would have made the call useless. So, instead, he asked about how Pipa was doing in Turin. And so began a constant communication.
***
The mate was ready. The TV was on, finally watching how Negan had murdered Glenn and, despite he knew what was coming, it still hurt. It reminded him a bit of how he felt when he was told he’d have to miss the October break. Regardless of the confrontation between Bauza and the Catalan press, he felt terrible. His friends were in bad streaks and he hardly knew how many times he’d had to reassure Kun and Pipa things would be okay. But Paulo hadn’t needed reassurance. Peru would see what they were made of, forget the past, forget Reyna blocking Maradona, it would be different now. And Paraguay, it was his hometown. He’d defend it and he’d make him proud. Leo had smiled. The near-kiss seemed forgotten and Paulo was as active as he’d first known him as. Sometimes he reminded him of Ney, his other youngster, although they’d never had such an incident.
In the end, not having said “friends?” over the phone had been his best choice, as they had kept talking like normal, although to be honest Leo was avoiding a few subjects. Not rudely, as he didn’t want to hurt Paulo ever again, but by diverting the subject, prompting a rant (Pau’s rants were the best, there was no age to develop the Argentine kick for expressing anger at the most creative ways), he avoided any sort of discussion about their life outlook, their feelings, things that might render them closer. It hadn’t taken long for Paulo to begin modulating his conversation topics, but since he still talked, Leo figured it wasn’t so bad. Distance helped, Leo had figured, in the end he had unwillingly become this big figure to look up to and he just wanted to make the best of it, same as somehow being considered the best player who ever walked the Earth. Besides, he couldn’t reap Paulo away from Juve. He loved that club, and right then Barça could only bench him. It wouldn’t have been fair, and he had the terrible feeling he might be capable of influencing the young Cordobese into leaving, which would be terrible. Paulo was a passionate guy, and if he could do something in a whim, he would. It had been best to forget, and it had worked well. No mentions of love in their conversations, just their mundane lives, just their friends, just their clubs.
Or so he had thought. He remembered the phone call he’d received from a plane towards Turin, after what would come to be known as the Córdoba disaster.
“I wanted to make them proud, I wanted to make you proud. But now they’re throwing shit at us, and…”
“Don’t worry, okay? We’re only halfway through. Remember Uruguay?”
“Unfortunately”.
“Ha, well… I mean the first half, before that cunt did what he did. You were right. You were the partner I needed. And we showed them”.
“Oh, I just wanted you back in the team, and given how Kun was doing…”
“Just Kun?” he had chuckled.
“Okay, Pipa as well, but it’s not his fault!”
“Che, didn’t know you loved him”.
“I don’t!” he had laughed, and Leo could picture the sweet smile Paulo was known for, regardless of his also constant frowns.
“You didn’t think I was another cocky pibe? You know, when I said that. That I could be your partner”.
“I think you knew your worth. I mean, you were the only one in that FIFA 17 promo who got his stats right”.
He swore he could have been able to see the smile in his mind.
“Listen, Pau, I’m getting better. And may Ney forgive me but we’re showing them how it feels like to play against your father”.
Again the laugh, and this time Leo was the one to smile. Both in that moment and as he evoked the memory. But then it hit him. They wouldn’t be able to show Ney. Because Bauza had traded one injured guy for another, because he’d never really believed in Pau and wanted to throw the blame on him. Because, regardless of what the media said and what Icardi might think, he wasn’t that powerful. There were things he couldn’t do.
Like convincing Bauza to do his job properly, to fight for Paulo the way he’d fought for him, up until the final snark.
Like going all the way to Turin and urge those clingy sons of a bitch to run those tests immediately and give Paulo a response as soon as possible.
Like scoring some magic goal that would heal Paulo of anything wrong with his hamstring.
Like allowing himself to feel, regardless of his position.
He had been so grateful for that distance, he wondered if he had somehow brought the bad luck into them. Unable to meet since that near-kiss, and regardless of how they’d managed to maintain an arguably good relationship, he had to admit to himself they’d both avoided the subject completely. Maybe Paulo didn’t want to lose him, hence damage would still have been done by his own stupidity. One kiss wouldn’t have hurt at all, and while he could be an influence, he should have known Paulo was not a kid. He knew exactly what he wanted and what he needed, and yet wasn’t stupid.
He had sent four voice messages instead of flying to Barcelona and arising rumours.
Maybe it was time to give the pibe some credit. No, not only that. But did he still want it? Or had the need for a friend, the thrill of seeing someone from the homeland and the position to defend changed the feelings in Paulo’s heart? Would the green emeralds still seek him? There was only one way to know.
He took out his phone and pressed the name. One ring, two, three.
“Hello?”
“Paulo, it’s me, Lionel”.
“Oh, hi Leo… I’m sorry, I really wanted to go but I have an overly attached club” The smile again, and the unspoken and a coach who doesn’t fight for me .
“Haha, don’t worry… Listen, do you remember Uruguay?”
“Of course- everything was beautiful and then I got sent off”. He could joke about it now.
“Yeah, but I mean… what happened in the locker room”.
Silence. One second, another, then another. Lionel sipped his mate, nervous.
“Yes. Of course, yeah”.
He took a deep breath. He knew Paulo never returned home for the holidays, very few days to go through such different timezones. That only left March for their next meeting. It seemed far away, but time flew by faster than anyone else might think. Still, he couldn’t afford to wait. Look at how things had gone so far.
“I should’ve kissed you. You really are different from any other youngster I have met in this decade. I don’t know if I really love you, it’s too big a word, but talking to you is great and I don’t want to hold on anymore. I don’t want to keep any subject as a taboo. I don’t want to keep pretending we have no romantic chemistry. If I could make it up to you, I would”.
He heard a sweet, small laugh.
“We’d just met. I bet it’d be different now”.
“Ha, I hope so, too”.
They stayed silent, but Leo could once again picture it all. The sparks in Paulo’s eyes, and his beautiful smile.
“I yelled at Bauza for you”.
“Wow, you really are the captain Argentina needed”.
Again laughter, and they discussed coaches, their mysterious motivations, perhaps Gabi Milito could tell them now that he’d passed to The Other Side, and Paulo laughed again.
In the end, it was very late at night. Leo would have training in the morning, and Paulo would begin the recovery process in Vinovo. They needed the sleep.
“Will we talk again tomorrow?” Paulo had asked. A bit of dread in his voice. Was that shyness? He never would have expected it.
“Of course, Pau”.
He could hear the smile. He was sure now. Just like he was sure of his feelings.
“Great” Paulo replied.
“Great”.
He hung up. None of them had said I love you .
Maybe by March they would.