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Last Thursday, James Rodríguez reached a milestone that best portrays what has been for the National Team: he became the Colombian with more matches played in the history of the qualifiers (55) and in the top scorer of the country in that competition, with 14 goals. That is what he was a scorer of the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, something that will hardly be repeated. Perhaps we have not sized enough that means that a Colombian has been a maximum gunner of a World Cup.
After the game, he went to the Metropolitan court, took off his guayos and stayed alone, barefoot, in the middle of that field that was so many times his stage. It was a silent, intimate ritual, a way to say goodbye to Barranquilla as a tie. At 33, he will hardly return there in that context. And he did it in his own way: without speeches or more cameras, with gratitude.
The question is why, despite everything he has given us, James is still resisted in certain sectors. What happens to us as a country so that it costs us so much to value who, clearly, is among the greatest in our history? It happens to us followed: we admire the crack, but we hug him with reservations. His left -hander dazzles, but his silences, his gestures, his downsual.
It's true, James has not been perfect. In Russia 2018 he could barely play because he was injured, and on the way to Catar 2022 he was the last to surrender with Reinaldo Rueda, when the classification escaped in his hands. But what crack does not have potholes? What happens is that he has been charged everything more expensive, as if it bother us that a Colombian has been a world cover with Real Madrid and that for years he was in the top of the best ten players on the planet; As if we bother to see one of ours so above.
The truth is that, even resisted, James has always been. In the current tie, with Lorenzo, he recovered prominence and was vital again. His left -hander is still intact, his game reading is irreplaceable. There will be younger and more fast and more adapted to modern football, but few with their ability to change a game with a single touch. In the end, perhaps the problem is not James, but we.
It is hard for us to recognize those who represent us big. It happened to us with Valderrama, Rincón, Higuita and even with Falcao. We want idols, but halfway. We moved with talent, but we resist the symbol. The day James is no longer, when we no longer have that touch that opens impossible matches, we will surely realize how much it meant. Hopefully it is not late to thank him – in the court, in life, in this tie – what is already a legend race.
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