The lanky Belgian feels at home and shows signs of speaking, thinking and feeling like an Hispanic
“Today no one could take away my desire for a Champions League. Before my death that I would win one ». After nine stops – three of which were great – Courtois stood at the Champions journalist’s microphone to show his most spontaneous side Because “for my dead” is a language game that says much more than it seems, including an indication that Courtois is fully integrated into the Iberian ring and thinks and feels like a native.
There are footballers, like Kroos, who go home from training and will never say a sentence in Spanish with a subject and a predicate. But others prefer to live and merge with the environment. In the 1990s, the Bulgarian Ludo Penev spoke more fluently than many Spanish colleagues. When asked how he managed to express himself in correct Spanish, he said the most important thing was not to stay at home. Indeed, the striker was famous because he knew all the nightclubs in the cities where he played: Valencia, Madrid, Vigo and Compostela.
The use of terms and linguistic twists in colloquial speech indicates that you do not live in a bubble, that you associate with people of flesh and blood, and that you also follow the way of being of those around you. The greatest philosopher of the 20th century -Ludwig Wittgenstein- believed that language not only served to describe reality, but also acted as a filter through which we experience life: “The limits of language are the limits of my world” . The Finns have 40 ways to refer to snow and so are more willing to distinguish that is relevant to them. We see snow, but they’ll say it’s “viti” (freshly fallen snow), “loska” (wet snow), or “ahto” (melted and re-frozen ice).
Courtois’ “for my dead” shows that the keeper thinks and feels in an Iberian key. This is not trivial. Ancelotti affirms that the difference between Madrid’s players and those who have trained in other teams is that the merengues are madridistas, that is, whoever comes to the white club ends up taking what anthropologists would call a certain “football culture”. In the same statements in which Courtois used the traditional morgue language game, the Belgian spoke of the fact that after “so many years and so much work” he had reached “the club of his life”. For some, these are empty words, like when you kiss the shield of the club you pay on the first goal you score. Courtois played two years at Genk, three at Atlético de Madrid, four at Chelsea and next season he will be in his fifth year at Real Madrid. He has been a great professional in all the clubs, but only now does he really feel that he identifies with a club, a history, some values. You can travel all your life and for some reason finally find a place where you are at home.
One day someone will have to explain why it is so common for footballers who come to Madrid to give the best version of themselves. Maybe because the performance increases if you start to believe that mantra that Madrid is the best team in the world. But for this to happen, one must merge with the surrounding ecosystem.
Thibaut Courtois has a Belgian name and as a Belgian he is two meters tall. But face to face, he seems more Spanish than others: he jokes, uses expressions and reflects with local arguments, as if he was born in the corner of the Bernabéu. He says that if you win 1-0, “the saves look better”; that it’s not exactly “lame at my feet”, that in football “it’s normal to get beat up” and that when the goalkeeper fails, “they put you in the fridge”. Even, as my son does, he begins his sentences with the catchphrase of the times: “If plan…”.
We anthropologists try to capture the point of view of the indigenous people we study, kind of like seeing what they see and then telling them later. The next time I’m away from home doing anthropological research, I’ll think of Courtois and, like him, try to immerse myself in the local culture until speaking, thinking and feeling like another native. For my dead.
Source: La Verdad
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