Avanzada la tarde, saltó la sorpresa. Cuando en el Real Madrid todas las miradas apuntaban a centrocampistas como Vitinha o Joao Neves, e incluso a virtuosos atacantes como Michael Olise, el “gran jugador” al que había hecho referencia Florentino Pérez al prometer el “mayor traspaso” de la historia del club blanco —una oferta agendada por él mismo para este martes durante los últimos días de la campaña electoral a la presidencia del club blanco— era Julián Alvarez, delantero centro del Atlético de Madrid.

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No fue hasta pasadas las dos y diez de la madrugada del domingo al lunes cuando el Real Madrid anunció los resultados de los comicios presidenciales con un escueto comunicado en su página web, sin mención a las cifras oficiales de abstenciones, votos en blanco ni votos nulos: “Con el 100% de los votos presenciales y por correo escrutados, la candidatura encabezada por Florentino Pérez ha ganado las elecciones”. Solo entonces, tras más de seis horas de larga espera desde el cierre de las mesas electorales, se supo que la candidatura de Pérez había obtenido 21.741 apoyos, el 65% del total, mientras que la de su rival en las urnas, Enrique Riquelme, se había quedado en 11.814, el 35% restante.

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He takes this newspaper’s call on a train bound for Hamburg, home of St. Pauli, continues by car and says goodbye almost an hour later in his office at the headquarters of the modest club, which he has chaired since 2014. Oke Göttlich (Hamburg, Germany; 50) is also one of the 13 vice presidents of the DFB, the German Football Association. And earlier this year, amid threats from Donald Trump’s administration to invade Greenland, Göttlich, a trained journalist, said enough was enough. “What reasons justified the boycotts by certain countries of Olympic Games in the 1980s?” he asked, referring to Moscow 1980 and Los Angeles 1984, in the Hamburger Morgenpost. “In my view, the current threat is greater than back then, so we must have this discussion; a footballer’s life is not worth more than the life of any of the people being directly or indirectly attacked by the host country of the next World Cup.”

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There is no sign of a lack of sleep in the sharp gaze of Simone Biles (Columbus, Ohio; 29). It’s still early, but the American, one of the greatest gymnasts in history — 11 Olympic medals and 30 world medals, 23 of them gold, an absolute record for men and women and more than double the total of her two nearest rivals, Russia’s Svetlana Khorkina (9) and Romania’s Gina Gogean (9) — poses and smiles shyly beneath the glass ceilings of Madrid City Hall. She is the star of the Future Health event, organized by health insurance company Sanitas in the capital. And everyone is watching her: muscles intact, makeup immaculate. Around her neck jingles a chain bearing the surname of her husband, fellow athlete Jonathan Owens, a player for the NFL’s Colts. A dense air of mystery hangs over the room. No one dares guess Biles’ intentions: she has now gone two years without competing, the same amount of time that remains until the Los Angeles Olympic Games, where, if she decides to remain active, she will be 31.

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