At 4:40 p.m. the calm silence of the Seville sky on this October 1, scorched by a summer sun, entered through the window of room 501 of the Vincci La Rábida hotel. At that exact time, Juli began the ritual of dressing in lights for the last time. Hurrying up every movement, the sword waiter disassembled the chair from the pieces of the farewell suit., a bull’s blood and gold. The process ended with the usual free time that he spent chatting with his attorney, Luis Manuel Lozano, the only witness of the final loneliness of the bullfighter who has ruled bullfighting for a quarter of a century.
At 5:30 p.m. the conversation ended, the silences and the mixed sandwich at 1:00 p.m. digested, to leave for the scene of his dreams and his nightmare, towards the third act of his career, here in the Maestranza, where seven Puertas del Príncipe contemplate him . Like seven caryatids that supported the temple of his race. Since 1999, when he unlocked but did not go through the first of them when he fell injuredgoing through the very serious goring of 2013 and the pardon of Orgullito [Garcigrande] In 2018, until the last one in 2022, Seville has been its place. When the lock rang at 6:00 p.m. and the procession was made and undone, the thunderous standing ovation honored his career. Madrid, so opposed to the Baratillo arena in its treatment, had already paid honors and homage in an emotional, generous and, I would add, just tribute of atonement.
If in Las Ventas a certain poetic justice occurred, in Seville at 6:20 p.m. it turned to the antipodes of an unjust revenge, a paradox of destiny: the first bull of Garcigrande, Juli’s main livestock farm, frustrated with his proclaimed brute meekness the possibility of the eighth Prince’s Gate. He did not show in his deep frame or in his open face an atom of bravery, zeal or even fixity. And he made several threats, unaware of the deception. Juli shortened the task but took forever with the steel.
At 6:30 p.m. a fine specimen jumped on the outside – the most enchanting along with the fourth of the unequal run – and fine on the inside, with a capital class in its exquisite attack. Sebastián Castella, who the day before He left through a lax Prince’s Gate, according to the chronicles, was received as if it had not existed. As if the Maestranza intoned “I have not been.” The greeting on his knees gave way to the completion of him standing, when the great garcigrande sewed his snout to the flight of the sets with exquisite temperance.
But it was at 6:31 p.m. when the bull got what he really asked for: Daniel Luque nailed the bullfight in three superior veronicas and a half-cry. Like a declaration of intent. Castella made the first mistake: replicate in the same suit with little cleanliness, in addition. Already piled up as it later happened at work. Which he chivalrously offered to El Juli. The bull, called Amador, beyond the ethics that SC possesses, asked for an aesthetic… In the time it lasted, maybe four series plus the inappropriate start due to changes, I think he got bored in some way. And his little bottom cracked and went to a draw, where the Gaul finished the mess, never better said.