The Spanish national football team has excited not only for having won the World Cup, but also for how they achieved it. To the undeniable talent of the players has been added the exaltation of teamwork, humility, and the importance of the culture of effort. If to all this you add the image of many players who adorned themselves with flags of their respective communities to receive the trophy, you get a magnificent spot of a federal, united, and committed Spain. Too good to be true.
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That is why many in recent hours have wondered if that image of a supportive and fraternal team could extend to Spanish politics as a whole. It would be good if it were so, without a doubt, but today it is materially impossible. The level of polarization existing in Spanish political and social life turns Luis de la Fuente’s team into a mirage. And it is not just the usual confrontation between right and left, but it would also be impossible due to the conflict between territories. From regional presidents committed to spreading the supposed favoritism that Catalonia receives to the independence speeches of “Spain robs us.” Separators and separatists.
It is not only the politicians’ fault. The media and, especially, the hate messages exchanged on social networks have opened breaches impossible to sew up. The Minister of Justice, Félix Bolaños, stated this past Sunday in the interview published in La Vanguardia that from his Government “we seek that more and more Catalans feel comfortable in a common project called Spain.” Surely that is better than feeding the independence discourse with confrontational policies. And there is no doubt that the success of a common project, like that of the Spanish national team, can contribute to that goal. But let’s not fool ourselves: the real world has little to do with football.
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Let us celebrate the success of this great generation of footballers and not fall into the temptation of turning them into a symbol of a general concord that today does not exist in Spain.
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