The plane door opens and a breath of fire enters without asking permission. The heat is a direct kick to the chest that abruptly prevents the passage of air. In Barranquilla You breathe hot air that suddenly awakens indomitable body sweat. The jacket is no longer useful and the shorts take center stage.
From the 11 or 12 degrees that it was on Thursday in the Monumental to the almost 40 that weigh on this city in northern Colombia, steps from the Caribbean Sea. That abrupt change received the National Team Lionel Scaloniwhich landed around 8:30 p.m. here on the charter flight to have dinner an hour and coins later at the Hilton Garden Inn Hotel, located in the heart of the commercial area.
Had we landed a few hours earlier, perhaps the journey from the airport to the hotel would have been somewhat tedious as a result of a picket that the residents of the Las Trinitarias neighborhood, Municipality of Soledad, bordering Barranquilla, have been carrying out three days ago due to lack of light in the area. Any similarity with some neighborhoods in Buenos Aires is not pure coincidence.
At that point, the area could be cleared and the Albiceleste micro had no problems reaching his bunker, where some fans were waiting for him, mostly Colombians, but all wearing light blue and white t-shirts.
In the absence of Lionel Messi, injured, and Ángel Di María, retired from the National Team, fans are focusing on other protagonists. Paulo Dybala is one of the most wanted by supporters around the world. Here, at the door of the Argentina hotel, Vanesa, a Colombian who declares her love for Joya. She came with a photo of herself, the Roma shirt and a drawing made of her fist that portrays a celebration of Dybala’s goal with his father, the most important figure that Paulo remembers looking at the sky at each goal. . “I saw him play a match in Palermo against Juventus and from that moment on I followed him. If he enters this Tuesday I will want him to score a goal, it will hurt a little because he is in Colombia but seeing him happy is incomparable,” he says.
Nearby, Jorge regrets Leo’s absence: “It breaks our soul that he is not there.” But he already has another idol in the National Team: “After Messi, Drawing Martínez, he is the craziest and makes everyone cry. “He gave the World Cup to Messi.”
Santiago is Argentine but lives in Bogotá with his family. They traveled to Barranquilla to watch the game. He does not go out of his way for the ’10’ and the forwards; He dies for the defenders: “With Otamendi there I am already happy and I love the aggressiveness of Cuti Romero and the technique of Licha Martínez.” His friend, next to him, encourages Alejandro Garnacho.”
The effervescence without Messi is not the same, of course, but the champion team of everything moves passions just the same. Some drops fall from the sky late at night. A relief? The humidity that rises from the boiling asphalt confirms that not even the rain brings relief here.