Why La Roja Shines, In White, Black & Brown
3 months ago |

July 14, 2024 will be a date to remember in Spain. Carlos Alcaraz’s victory in Wimbledon and the unexpected success of the Spanish squad at the Euros were something more than a breath of fresh air. They also had a message for the world and to Spain itself as a nation. “I’m Spanish, what do you want me to win?”, a successful catchphrase of the early 2010s, got back into circulation on social media. The two victories have also shown Spain as a changing country finding its way to be, while the far-right rises in the Western world.

The two wins’ accurate comparison is neither with the 2010 Fifa World Cup, nor Nadal’s long run in tennis. Instead, we have to go back 32 years to the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. That was not only a sports success. It was a public demonstration that Spain isn’t only about bulls and paella, and that Spaniards aren’t short, big-bellied, lazy people, but modern, free, arty and talented citizens of a likeable country.

How did that happen? Was there a sudden explosion of talent? If anything, there was a sudden explosion of method.

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Views expressed above are the author’s own.



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