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The Alexis Riddle – The Third

Alexis Sánchez had ceased to be important, transformed without incident into an ordinary and vulgar, inconsequential player. Of fragile physique and listless spirit. As a complete shutdown overnight. Or perhaps it happened progressively, falling hopelessly since long ago it occurred to him to leave Arsenal. So low did it come that it was finished. It was feared that a former footballer would rather inhabit that body, still 31 years old. Expensive, but unrecoverable. And suddenly on Wednesday the light came on suddenly. Again. For a while Alexis returned. The best Alexis. The wonder boy.

It was not just the goal, no matter how great its therapeutic effect against a devastating 277-day drought was for someone who lives by scoring them and the gift for a media hungry for national headlines. Finally it was just a penalty, luckily the Chilean dominates long but does not invite to uncork champagne. The news was that he was allowed to throw it and that he wanted to launch it, a sign of recovered mutual trust. But it was not the goal, no; the shock was caused by the entire match. A long, recognizable burst of old Alexis, the best Alexis. The wonder boy.

It was the Alexis of constant need to come into play. The one to look for, to stand out, to receive and to turn around. The one to find partners of thread or of pass to the space. It was ingenuity, precision and desire. The owner of the stopped ball. The hungry and brash guy to search the net even for a direct corner. Good in the physical and good in the virtuous. A goal, two assists and a fun time. Even his face was hers again. Nothing to do with that gesture between tormented, angry and sad on the bench or the court to which we had become accustomed for a few months.

After the shock and enthusiasm for the return of whom we have not seen for a little more than two years, it remains to be resolved now whether it was an occasional irruption, the automatic reflection of who had retained, or is it the reliable advance that the guy is back. Knowing whether the compliments to an absolutely minor Brescia will be exaggerated and temporary or will return to your ear in a habitual or definitive way.

The same should not come so high. Alexis is necessarily still there, closer to the suspected footballer than to the certainties that used to accompany him when it was a safe bet. His performance tasted like national holidays and fireworks. But in the hubbub the receiver’s urgencies also weighed. The anxiety and despair for a Chilean football that has lost prominence and finds no solution in sight to hold or succeed a golden generation that is consumed and ends. And of that group, Alexis was a leading actor. That is why it so distressed its unexpected and unexplained sinking.

It is also difficult to decipher Alexis, to know if he is going up or down the stairs. Unlike Vidal, who lives with his windows open and turns his day to day into a permanent Big Brother, who is quickly discovered whether he is happy or angry, Alexis is an enigma in himself. Even for their colleagues and their bosses. She neither warned of her collapse nor announced her sudden return the other day. There is no indication either of whether the latter was a coincidence or a symptom. It is only known that his loan at Inter expires the first week of August and that his contract with United lasts until June 2022. His present and future is a mystery.

There are those who maintain that as soon as he returned from confinement, he gave clues to recovery with two correct passages against Sassuolo and Parma. But no one then looked away from the plate. It was Wednesday that abruptly lifted Chileanism from its seat, as in the old days. And he already left it there, standing, with all the desire set on Sunday at 11.15. The day of the reunion of the Wonder Boy with the ball. Also, against Gary Medel’s Bologna. An opportunity to check if Alexis, the best Alexis, came back for a while or to stay.

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