Also for my sister.
I first heard of Carles Puyol in
the winter of 2003, well before my world soccer fixation had taken root. I was
visiting my sister, who had lived for a year in Barcelona, and she told me with
absolute certainty that she was going to marry a footballer that she called “the
Poo”, Carles Puyol.
“It’s OK” she told me, “none of
the other girls will like him, he’s ugly”. The ugly part may have been true (I
think of him more as “designer unkempt”) but Carles Puyol was steeped in Catalan
colours and already a local icon; she was also pretty seriously involved with a
local Francophone.
Suffice to say, my brother in law
has never played for Barcelona, at least not to my ken.
