I went to Palestine and nobody cared about Michael Jordan.

This month, when I wasn’t sitting in the dirt, I was quietly pursuing an interest in sports and playful movement in a space that is militarized and surveilled to restrict mobility. What games do people invent? Which sporting cultures resonate? How does joy live in reimagined motion?

This few-hundred word column will not be answering those questions. But there’s another big query on the way that can be resolved.

Some evenings I wandered the village, collecting more friends under the age of 10 than over 20. During these little jaunts, we dropped balloons from rooftops (competitively), flew kites and tossed unripened grapes. As for sports, soccer reigned. Club and national kits ran rampant, emblazoned with names like Mbappé, Ronaldo, Bellingham, Messi, Neymar and so on.

Basketball hoops were also easy to find where hoops are frequently found. So, I assumed people played basketball too, even if it was cemented as secondary to soccer. But from day one, locals kindly corrected me: No, nobody cares about basketball. I stayed stubborn: insisting people played, snapping photos of every passing backboard. Yet, in my heap of evidence, the only ball to make a cameo was — inevitably — a soccer ball.

Once, I believed I’d found an informant: a girl wearing a Chicago Bulls cap. Surely, she knew ball. Wrong thought. I asked about the Bulls. About Jordan. She replied, “What?” then launched into the village’s usual lineup of questions: What’s your name? Where are you from? Do you have a hawiya? Barça or Madrid?

I always passed the first few questions with ease. For the last one, I typically opted for a diversion. My men’s soccer takes are underbaked. The last time I watched a full match was the World Cup and before that was the previous World Cup. And before that… you get it.

Honestly, it’s embarrassing to incessantly fail to know where I fit in a standardized, and rather universal, classification of identity. Trying on the sorting hat of Spanish clubs shouldn’t be impossible, so I will make an effort.

At first, I figured this was another way of asking: Messi or Ronaldo? Though neither plays for their former club, the association lingers.

If that’s the case, then you are spared the rest of my words because I have opinions.
Messi obviously has the cooler name but since even before my time, he seemed scrappier, speedier and just tantalizing. Briefly in 2016, I jumped ship when he got the sleeve tattoo, but I climbed back aboard when I got some sense. And now, in the motherland, Miami! My answer must not be Madrid.

Although if Messi is in Miami and Ronaldo is in Saudi Arabia, then these kids probably don’t possess my associations. This classic question is about El Clásico.

Luckily, I still have “How Soccer Explains the World” on my shelf, so I can find an answer in my politics.

Franklin Foer’s wonder book says that under Francisco Franco’s dictatorship in the mid-20th century, Real Madrid became a symbol of the centralized Spanish state. By contrast, Barcelona was dubbed the “disarmed symbolic army” for Catalonia. The club’s president, Josep Sunyol, was executed by Franco’s forces. And for many Catalans, supporting Barcelona from the stands became a safer form of resistance — less risky than protest, but louder than silence.

On the pitch, Barcelona maintains its mystique, whereas Madrid is more mythic, invincible. Madrid has 15 shiny Champions League titles, decades of dominance and, because I can project my dislike of white jerseys, imperial kits. Unlike Madrid’s coherent lineage, my miniscule knowledge pool recalls Barça players at the extremes such as Andrés “El Ilusionista” Iniesta, known for being silent and sedulous, or briefly, Neymar, for being himself. It’s spectral and I like it.

I wish I’d done this thinking weeks ago, rather than my usual doltish deflections, “Wait, does Alex Morgan play for Madrid?”

Still, my thinking is slippery, but I’ve picked a side. It may not be forever. At least for now when a basketball fan poser asks, it’s Barça.

Leila MacKenzie is a rising senior writing about minor details in sports in her column, “Little Things.”