Beyond The Cup

It is strange how a World Cup can have repercussions that are felt far beyond football or sport. For evidence of this, I need look no further than what happened in Spain during the 2010 tournament.

As you already know, unless you live somewhere that couldn’t give a toss about football, Spain won. The place went wild and the party has, so far, lasted days rather than hours. The team did an open-top-bus parade around Madrid; it was supposed to last 2 hours, in the end it lasted 4. Over 1 million people flocked to the city centre to welcome the boys home; all were waving flags or painted with flags; dressed in red and gold, or with the colours striped through their hair. Even now there are still Spanish flags everywhere.

To me, this outpouring of national pride seemed pretty normal. As a Brit I am used to seeing the national colours come out and the flags wave at the slightest provocation. To be honest, at home the national paraphernalia can be seen everywhere before the tournaments even start.

I didn’t realise until the day of The Final that, in Spain, this is not normal.

A work colleague said to me, “I am off home, my daughter wants me to paint her face again; I did it for the first time ever for the semi finals. And I just bought her her first Spanish football team shirt; she insisted I buy one for myself. I never even considered buying one before.”

I was a bit bemused by this, never even considered wearing a Spanish team shirt? But, Spain won the European Championship a mere two years ago; didn’t he do all this then too?

Apparently not. And here’s a potted version of why:

Until very recently (1975) Spain lived under a fascist dictatorship headed by Francisco Franco. When they came out of it the majority of the people, understandably, wanted nothing whatsoever to do with fascism, an important facet of which is nationalism, flag waving. Hence, throughout the post dictator era and continuing to this day, showing national pride in the form of waving a Spanish flag or wearing the national team’s strip was a big social taboo. If you did it, everyone considered you a fascist. A supporter of the oppressive ex-regime.

It’s also worth bearing in mind that Spain is a country divided. In many of the autonomous regions it has, relatively recently, become taboo to consider yourself Spanish rather than, say, Catalan (this revival of non-Spanish nationalism also has its roots in the oppression of the Franco era). To show any support for Spain is often considered a betrayal, and can be dangerous.

But this World Cup has gone a long way towards lessening these taboos. For the first time in many people’s lives it was OK to hang a Spanish flag from your window or put one in your car; no need to fear reprisals. You could walk the streets painted in red and gold and everyone would shout and hoot and applaud. There were images from plazas around Spain, including in Catalunya and the Basque Country, which showed people plastered in Spanish flags, cheering on the Spanish team.














This change may be permanent, or it may merely be transient, but, for that one brief moment, the country was united; everyone was proud, everyone was Spanish and no-one was afraid to show it.