Nadie es profeta en su tierra

¿Seremos tan mezquinos los mexicanos con Javier Hernández? Tras una respuesta rutinaria (por verdadera, simple y llana) -"No quiso venir"- a una pregunta automática (de cajón) - "Profe, ¿Y Chicharito?"-, los comentaristas que simpatizan con el delantero del Bayer Leverkusen sacaron a colación la presunta ola de críticas, vituperios, groserías y mentadas que habría recibido por preferir hacer pretemporada con el club del que recibe su salario.

"Está muy presente un sentir entre los brasileños comunes que Neymar no es necesariamente uno de ellos; que aunque su cara aparece por doquier, en general está siendo usada con tal de venderles algo." Con estas líneas describió con precisión el enorme columnista del Telegraph británico, Jonathan Liew, la relación odio-amor que existe entre Brasil y el extremo izquierdo del FC Barcelona. Neymar, se infiere a través de Liew, está partido entre el futbolista del mundo real (ése capaz de lo mágico y de lo sublime; incapaz de ganar títulos por sí solo) y la imagen de la estrella juvenil (la que se toma selfies con Justin Bieber y una botella de champaña; evasor de impuestos tanto en su país como en España).

Y esta partición entre el mundo real y el mundo alternativo sólo es odiosa para el compatriota de Ney. Porque espera de su figura títulos con la selección. Al aficionado culé, la segmentación de Neymar entre futbolista y popstar mucho le da lo mismo: si no gana algo una temporada lo ganará ya a la siguiente. Sin embargo, más pasan las vergüenzas, las finales perdidas o las golizas en contra, y para el brasileño ordinario la cara de Neymar anunciando jabón o zapatos más se le antoja una broma de mal gusto.

Chicharito, del mismo modo, está partido a la mitad. Pero su carga es quizá más ligera: por historia futbolera nacional, no está obligado a levantar ningún título importante con México. Por trayectoria individual, tampoco es necesario que le arrebate el Balón de Oro a los cracks que siempre ganan la Champions. Hernández, que se sepa, tampoco está obligado a responder por acusaciones legales, ni mucho menos. En el lado blanco del fútbol, Chicharito no es Neymar, y en el lado oscuro, (afortunadamente) tampoco.

Si hay varios dispuestos a trollearlo a las primeras de cambio y a no perdonarle nada es porque su cara también aparece en todas partes. Chicharito sabe con qué compañía es más barato hablar de México a Estados Unidos y a Canadá; asimismo sabe cuál es el banco que más le conviene a los mexicanos y durante mucho tiempo también supo de lo mejor en bebidas con cero azúcar. Futbolísticamente tal vez está lejos de la élite, pero financieramente se acerca un poquito más.

Y eso se debe a que Hernández necesita al Tri. Su club podrá cubrirle las quincenas, pero es la selección la que le brinda exposición suficiente para cobrar por su imagen. Nadie es profeta en su tierra; no obstante (en este caso particular) el profeta la necesita y mucho. En la tensión que hay en el aire cuando Hernández debe justificar su juego con México, y lo que percibe económicamente cuando utiliza las concentraciones de fecha FIFA para rodar comerciales, está explícita la relación amor-odio entre él y sus compatriotas.

¿Cuánto puede durar la cuerda tensa antes de que ésta se rompa? Ésa es la gran pregunta. Afortunadamente para Chicharito, una cuerda más larga y muchísimo más tensada está a punto de reventarse en Brasil.

Chicharito: Mexico's newest idea of violence

Argentine storyteller Jorge Luis Borges used to contend that authentic metaphors have already been invented. Regarding new ones, either they are weak or are little more than remakes of the classics. "True [metaphors], those which formulate intimate connections between one image and another, have always existed", he wrote. Cooling down a hot potato ("Sacar las papas del fuego", a common expression in Spanish which smoothly translates to English), for instance, is just as useful as timeless: it works due to the linkage between the image of the difficulty which is solved at any time in any place with that of the burning potato.

If we are to explain the commonly held belief amongst Mexicans that Mexico barely stands out in good things (without using that many words), then we should ask the safe help from the ubiquitous metaphor of The Crab Bucket. They will get it: seeing the lone crustacean at its useless struggle against its peers in order to connect this scene with whatever political, economic or cultural traits are considered characteristic of Mexican society. The Mexican man never excels, because the Mexican men are going to take him down.

Although it might well apply to fellow countrymen of success like filmmaker Alejandro González Iñárritu, the social critique suggested by the Crab Mentality does it better to the soccer star Javier Hernández's career. The more popular and more familiar, the more useful. Those good and bad seasons through which the tireless young man from Jalisco has remained in Europe without falling prey of surrender have taken him beyond the place of mere sporting figure: he now personifies the idea, powerful and appealing, according to which his fatherland can no longer be compared to a bucket full of hideous crabs. Some of them could still survive, far too many perhaps. But in the times of  Negro Iñárritu and Chichadiós, the metaphor shall be absolutely obsolete.

Metaphors do much more than simplifying the complex. They function as this simplification is done by means of a contrast, imagination and reality. Mexico is not The Crab Bucket given that neither all vices can be imputed onto all of a country's inhabitants nor those vices can be exclusive national property: metaphors like these simultaneously portray all of the world's societies and none of them. By becoming the archetype of the success of Mexico, the Javier Hernández idea moreover blurs our metaphor's contrast and leaves it as another cliché. Another unworthy commonplace that revolves in half truths and fallacies... The archetype gives Mexicans the strongest of cases for finally saying, "Yes, we can".

In terms of winning hearts rather than winning minds, archetypes crush metaphors. The contrast between imagination and reality gets replaced by a contradiction, a clash of opposites with no room to nuances: just as the accepted archetype of beauty defines ugliness by opposition. Values against anti-values; good Mexicans against bad Mexicans. One necessary analysis of the Chicharito idea in the country where crabs keep moving sideways must ask for who these are (the bunch of those envious, resentful, mediocre, jobless and idle that wander in the streets and proliferate within social media), and, what is more, must ask too for what banners are lifted by the newest national archetype itself: the cult of success, the self-indulgence, the work made in order to shut mouths, the unfettered vanity. The belligerent side of strong hearts must subdue the side of lazy hearts.

Metaphors, however, can reach further than archetypes when it comes to winning minds and hearts. The Crab Bucket is as much a critique to every social vice as the concept of Chauvinism encloses an ever-pertinent critique to archetypes which suspiciously wrap reasons into flags. A word of French origin, Chauvinist copes with one bizarre offshoot of nationalism which, besides, translates to other languages, though its arrival South of the Rio Grande seems forever delayed.

Questioning whether the twice Oscar-winning director makes films that are rich in photography but poor in narrative; or questioning the fair merit of netting handfuls of goals in contrast to assistances to other teammates which can be counted with less than five fingers, is more often than not understood as the crab treason toward the archetype of Mexican excellence. It is so understood in the place where there is no self/social critique, Chauvinism, Jingoism.

As Borges rightly contended, the power of metaphorical language brings us to look into the intimacy of two juxtaposed images: The Crab Bucket is one for reflection on whole societies and not on random groups of individuals. This Chicharito idea, turned into archetype of social rhetoric, more than to describe is dedicated to judge people on arbitrary criteria. Good and bad countrymen we are, no matter how many first-touch goals inside the penalty area of a soccer field are needed to make us submissive and silent.

@Cesarkickoff

What if Mexican players are overvalued instead of lacking ambition?

The leaking of what presumably is Héctor Herrera's contract with FC Porto by FootballLeaks may show us a different perspective in the discussion about foreign talent in Mexican soccer. Although the most volcanic argument is that which says Mexican youngsters lack in ambition and indulge themselves once they reach early success, it would only be half the story.

Herrera's unofficial contract tells us that Mexican players particularly are now as much a footballing asset as a financial asset; both sides being related to each other to a extent which would open the possibility of overvaluation (like happens with currencies, commodities or stocks). The footballing side would be the "face value" while the financial side would be the "market value". The difference between them is, according to the first result given by Google:

A: Face value, or par value, is equal to a bond's price when it is first issued, but thereafter, the price of the bond fluctuates in the market in accordance with changes in interest rates, while the face value remains fixed.

The abovementioned document says Herrera moved from the Mexican league to the Portuguese league in 2013 through the acquisition of 80% of his economic rights by FC Porto (8 million euros). Moreover, the side letter to the transfer agreement between the Portuguese and Pachuca states that the release clause for a potential move to another club (in case the remaining 20% stayed with Pachuca), amounted to 20 million euros to be distributed proportionally amongst the two parties. Within the pages of FC Porto's public financial statement for the 2013-14 season, however, the release fee appears as 40 million and not 20 as it appears in the side letter leaked.

                           

The moneyball strategy that Porto employs with the Mexican midfielder is the same employed with other players in the past: to try to cash the highest profit possible by betting (speculating, bluffing, if you like) on the perceptions of the market value. Once Porto manages to sell, say, Jackson Martínez, for three or four times the money they paid to Jaguares de Chiapas, a new contract is signed and Jackson's face value (along with his release clause) increases boosted in part by his footballing performance.

Although Héctor Herrera landed on Portugal a summer after conquering the Olympic gold medal with the u23 Mexican team, he experienced a dip in form during that Olympic tournament making his final appearances only as a substitute. As we saw in the last World Cup (where Herrera was arguably Mexico's best man), he's relentless, disciplined and able to dribble past everyone in central zones. When fully fit, he can be top class. But when not fully fit or focused, he wanders and disappears: it was the case in the last Concacaf Gold Cup, where he was relegated to the bench, and it was also the case during the first months of the current club season.

Herrera is a player of ups and downs and it's likely that Porto won't sell his rights for more than his real face value (less than 20 million euros). A potential move for him probably will resemble that of countryman Javier Hernández last summer. Although back in 2010 this latter's transaction fee remained undisclosed, the money Manchester United paid Chivas is said to be in the region of 6 million pounds; the money Bayer Leverkusen paid United, five seasons later, was just 7.3 million. Chicharito's face value, in other words, remained almost equal in plain footballing terms.

Mexican talented footballers are indisputably a financial asset whose profit ratio is way bigger than that of players from smaller countries with a similar tradition like Chile, Uruguay or even Argentina. For instance, social media accounts of European clubs which target Spanish-speaking audiences can easily double or triple their traffic from Mexico or from the United States by signing a decent prospect. That's where the market value of a Mexican player can pull up his face value, along with his salary, although then such a gap between the footballing side and the financial side is of course an overvaluation.

The gap between face and market values for Mexican players, namely, the existence of a general overvaluation, is no theoretical abstraction because it explains the increasing need of imported talent in Liga Mx in spite of the too increasing presence of Mexicans in European Leagues. Time has come for fans to assign the proper value to a beautiful volleyed goal against Paços de Ferreira in a 4-0 thrashing and to any junior title the national side can win, bearing in mind the fair location of Mexican soccer within the beautiful game's international marketplace.