The Spanish national team is wonderful. Without Pedri, Nico Williams and Lamine (three phenomena), they toured Europe and qualified for the World Cup as if they were masters of football. They convince and attract because they play well and play very well. They beat you without haste, as if the ball had plenty of time to discover the opponents’ weak points. Players with technique and judgment who concede few goals, score many and dominate matches. The ball has been on their side ever since Spanish tiqui-taca stole global admiration from Brazil. Double merit, because he did it at a time when football produces players who are physically strong and obedient to the method. The trend confuses football with a sport. Make no mistake: It’s an early game.
A game that Spain respects more than anyone since the first training cycle, making necessity a virtue. There are many clubs that work their quarries by placing emphasis on technique and knowledge of the game, which has its own science. A science that the team respects, proposing a different speed in each area of the pitch it crosses and understanding that the pace of the game has to do with both acceleration and pause. These principles that contribute to dominance will be crucial during the World Cup, when matches will be played in unbearable temperatures and at irresponsible times. In these conditions, proposing home and away matches would be suicide.
The arguments are hopeful and admirable, but fans are so accustomed to excellence that they retain their interest in the World Cup. Apparently the costume, although ingenious, anesthetizes. As if it wasn’t worth getting excited so long before the World Cup. Spain played its last match against Turkey, the most important rival in its qualifying group. Apparently, it also seemed like little. There was a time when a game like this stopped the country. On this occasion, on the morning of the match, a radio program spoke about it with some reluctance and there were journalists who seemed to be inviting people not to go onto the pitch. The fans obeyed and the Cartuja was an intemperate stadium.
Let’s look for the reasons. The team qualified without anguish or controversy, so that football, in the hands of these boys, is not the dramatic spectacle that we like so much. This game needs epic, conflict, risk and Spain, competing so well, nullifies that tension. Wasn’t it about fun? Yes, but suffering a little because football is supported by uncertainty. How complicated we are.
There is a weightier argument. I think that the little homeland, which is the team we have chosen since we were children, has acquired more relevance than the big homeland, the team that represents Spanish football. They are the best Spanish players wrapped in the country’s flag, but they interrupt the exciting beat of the championship. Those of Betis want to beat Sevilla, those of Madrid against Barcelona and those of Athletic against Real Sociedad. And vice versa. And so, from south to north, clean knife duels follow one another that whet the high and low instincts before, during and after the matches. It doesn’t matter that the club belongs to an investment fund or that the shirt is defended by eleven foreigners. Mercantilism won that battle. What people care about is that the shield represents their place and reminds them of their father. Identity cannot be complained about.
In the World Cup the championship will no longer be an emotional obstacle and will activate pride. Another 47 will await the team. But Spain has a great privilege: it is different. It’s called cultural identity. May it last, infect and identify.
