“In a classic there are no favorites, especially in finals. They are defined by details” | OPINION

Just three months later, on March 26, the championship final was played. Alianza had achieved the feat of arriving with an emergency team, which had Juan Reynoso as a young banner. In front, the lifelong rival, the cream of the Suárez twin directed by a newcomer Juan Carlos Oblitas. That night, the Nacional was roaring. It seemed like the dream final, the ideal tribute for that wonderful team that had perished in the Ventanilla sea.

As soon as the actions began, the ball reached Nene. Before he made a turn, a kick from Reyna warned that Pagano’s whistle had put an end to any sentimentality: the U wanted to win. It was not only a final, the edge of the goalkeeper’s chimpunes Maradona I had just reminded him. It was a classic. It wasn’t just any game.

We journalists, quintessential totalists, love to act as astrologers on the eve of matches of this size and launch grandiose predictions, to which we add numbers and one or another extravagant statement trying to give them some consistency. So, we put on our most serious face, we make our voices louder and we remember the unbeatability of Fossati’s cream in the Monumental, how he has managed to win 90.7% of the points played at home or that Carvallo – the one thousand times insulted by the fans meringues- has kept a clean sheet 16 times this season. Likewise, that

After executing all this elaborate construction, we decided to destroy it in three seconds with a phrase that we repeated almost without reasoning: in a classic there are no favorites, anything can happen.

And yes, there are no favorites. There is always a team that arrives better, from a football or emotional perspective, but as old sports journalists would say, the classics – especially in finals – are defined by details. Deservingnesses are useless. A mistake, even the smallest, can ruin a season or elevate a villain. There is no justice in a final, especially in a classic. Although it is uncomfortable, painful, annoying, there is no justice in a classic: the only thing that matters is winning.