New Delhi: Spain beat France in the semi-final at the FIFA World Cup. Spain is such a fascinating country, and not just because my newsroom is filled with Rafa fans or because my friends have named their dogs Rafa, or just because of Nadal. Spanish sporting power is something else, a very unique culture of soft power that the country has built.
But that’s only one part of it.
Spain is also a fascinating country in many other ways; the culture, the language, one of the most spoken in the world. The Spanish have had a huge empire. All those former colonies speak Spanish, with the exception of Portugal, if you can call it a former colony.
But they’ve also picked up many of the cultural traits, the love for football, for example. That’s why football is so popular in Latin America. Spain also is interesting for its politics, internally as well as historically.
Islamic peak: In Islamic history, the conquest of Spain, what used to be the Iberian Peninsula, was described as Andalus or Andalusia. That is considered to be the golden period, the very acme of Islamic power and history.
Beginning with the early 8th century, the Umayyad Caliphate established itself in Spain or the Iberian Peninsula, ruling almost all of modern Spain. They were finally defeated in 1492 AD. For almost 800 years, they ruled Spain.
That was the territory of Granada, conquered by Catholic Spanish rulers. It was under their watch, from 1478 onwards, that the brutal Spanish Inquisition was carried out. It began in November 1478, and continued for almost 350 years, in fact exactly 356 years in bits and parts as the country and society almost completely Catholicised itself.
It was formally abolished in 1834, on July 15. That’s when followers of all religions were forced to convert to Catholicism. There were inquisitions in terms of figuring out who was secretly practising some other religion, and people were burnt at the stake. Estimates vary, but thousands, or even tens of thousands of people, were burnt at the stake. In the process, Islamic power was completely wiped out of Spain.
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New Spain, new problems: A kind of modern Spain emerged which then had its colonial moment going out to Latin America and Africa. This was also the era of silver, and that really enriched Spain. That was then the high point of Spanish colonial history and power. And then Spain had other troubles particularly coming into the 20th century.
Meanwhile, internally in Spain a more modern problem came up. Let’s start from with present. If you see the Spanish team now, of the 11 who went out to play, the starting 11, four were from a region called Catalonia.
That’s where the city of Barcelona is situated and that’s where the club of the same name is. The big rivalry in Spanish football is between the two clubs of Real Madrid—kind of central Spanish territory, the heartland or the Spanish heartland—and Barcelona. These two clubs also produce the greatest of talent in Spain and attract it as well: Messi, for example, has been playing for Barcelona.
Now, Catalonians have seen themselves as a separate country. There have been many rebellions. They have tried to force a referendum many times. At one point, in 2017, they even held a referendum, which their central government ruled illegal. These separatist forces in Catalonia forced a referendum even though the central government sent forces to suppress it. The referendum was incomplete; less than half of the people voted and 90 per cent chose separation.
The central government and the courts ruled it out. In 2010, the Spanish Supreme Court also ruled that the use of the term nation by Catalonians for themselves was illegal and unconstitutional. So, Spain has had this internal mess also.
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Echoes of autonomy: Catalonia has a great deal of autonomy, but all the key things, from currency to armed forces to the power to declare war to foreign policy, are controlled by the central authority. That is not very different—admittedly a stretch—from what the spirit of Article 370 was meant to be, never intended to be, when it was promised to Sheikh Abdullah.
That is when the ruler of Jammu and Kashmir signed the instrument of accession and Sheikh Abdullah supported him, Article 370 came in. The basic idea was that currency, foreign affairs, defence, communication, etc., will be controlled directly by the Centre and the rest by the government of Jammu and Kashmir.
That is the kind of situation that exists now in Catalonia. Between Catalonia and the Spanish central authority, however, tensions remain. That’s why Barcelona calls itself ‘Més que un club’, which means it is more than just a club. Barcelona thus represents an idea more than just a football club. It represents an idea of Catalonian autonomy. This story brings us to an interesting point or central argument, which is that sport divides but it also unites.
Game theory: In this case, the Spanish team that beat the French had four Catalonians who were key to the team’s success. Marc Cucurella, for example. Remember him in defence, particularly in the last 10-15 minutes, when the French were launching desperate attacks. You saw how grateful this Spanish goalkeeper Simon seemed to be to Cucurella, because he bailed him out so many times when the French had broken through.
A very formidable Spanish defence or the winger in attack or the right-winger in attack, what would now be called right inverted forward. That was Lamin Yamal, who was 19 years and a day old when he came out to play.
The important thing is that this Spanish team looks so united. Where do we play the Spanish? We play them in hockey, and they are a formidable team. They have been champions of the world.
It takes some doing to beat them, again in a united fashion. So you can say that sport unites.
I saw a newsletter in Politico which said how sport, or football, is actually helping Spain address one of its central problems. Real Madrid and Barcelona are rivals. Many other clubs are rivals and many of the players who play in the national team or any national team actually are bitter rivals, because they play for rival clubs. So I will take you back to a discussion on BBC many years ago, themed why men kill men.
Legendary all-rounder Ian Botham was one of the participants, and he said I don’t quite mind men killing men, as long as they do it for the right reasons. The anchor then asked what could be the right reasons for men to kill men? He said those like which football club you support. So sport unites, but also divides, in a competitive way.
The Catalonian issue looks like a perpetual problem in Spain. At the same time, the country will get more united and become powerful. Spain falls into a rut sometime but recovers quickly because it has many strengths: talented people, and talented immigrants too. As you can see, Lamine Yamal, for example.
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Hard going: One of the low points for Spain came about 16 or 17 years ago, in the wake of the global financial crisis. It then became the S in the group called PIGS, that is Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain, the countries whose economies had imploded. At some point Ireland was also added to it, so it became a double ‘I’, but that’s not quite relevant.
Spain came out of that. It has a lot of natural products to sell, from olives and olive oil to wine. At the same time, Spain also is a manufacturing power. See for example, the C295 multipurpose transport aircraft which Tata is now building in India in partnership with a company which is essentially, at this point, Spanish.
Spain had a rough beginning in the 20th century. It stayed out of both world wars. An elected socialist government took over power in Spain in the 1930s, the era of Hitler and Mussolini, and of nationalism in Europe. That’s when General Francisco Franco rose in Spain at the head of a nationalist force—some call it fascist— and started a civil war.
The elected government, or the Republicans, lost that war. That war was very popular with socialists all over the world; many went to Spain to fight for the Republicans. These included great writers like George Orwell and Ernest Hemingway.
Hemingway went to cover the Spanish Civil War but his sympathies were with the Republicans. That’s where his most famous work, For Whom the Bell Tolls, is placed.
Democracy steps in: Franco went on to become the longest ruling dictator of the 20th century, starting in 1939 and going out in 1975 with his death. He was a general, a dictator, but he had nominated the King of Spain, Juan Carlos I, as heir apparent, who then took over and quickly brought in democracy.
By 1978, a democratic constitution had been adopted. In 1981, there was a coup attempt by an army officer, obviously because the old nationalist tendencies were still alive. That was defeated.
Since then, Spain has been a democracy. Interestingly, Spain only became a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) in 1982. Even after that, it took Spain four more years to join the European Union, and it was still a reluctant member of NATO, joining its integrated military command structure only in 1996.
That has always been an issue in Spain’s politics. How subservient can Spain be to American power? Yet in the Afghan war, Spain sent soldiers and policemen, of whom 102 died over 20 years. This was a big matter of controversy and debate in the Spanish parliament, but they stayed steadfast.
Persian balance: That’s why now Spain has from Day 1 dissociated itself from the Iran war, calling it unjust and forced on Iran. At the same time, Pedro Sanchez, the prime minister of Spain, also called the Iranian regime a hateful regime.
So Spain is balancing this out, also saying they will not let the Americans use their bases for any operations. That led to a predictable spat with US President Donald Trump, who then threatened to stop all trade with Spain. That hasn’t happened.
But that spat spilled over into a fight between Pedro Sanchez and Elon Musk, the man who own social media platform X. Sanchez decided to limit the use of social media to those above the age of 16. He also said that this has become a republic of its own; a failed state, lawless and full of disinformation, not the truth. Musk called Sanchez a tyrant and an enemy of the Spanish people, adding a poop emoji for effect.
Not content with taking on Trump and Musk, Sanchez has taken on Israel. In April, he held a conference of socialist leaders in Spain, also attended by Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil. Sanchez sought support for the International Court of Justice to push action against the Israelis and build pressure on the EU to sever economic ties with Israel.
Also, while Spain did condemn the Russian invasion of Ukraine, it has said they will have nothing to do with Trump’s call to European countries to raise their defence spending to 5 per cent of the GDP, which most countries said yes to. So, they’ve been fighting with Trump on vital issues from the beginning.
Cusp of the Cup: Now they’re on the verge of the greatest honour in the history of football. Spain is actually an incredible sporting power for a country with a population under 5 crore. Look at their success in football. This is their third time they have entered the semi-final at FIFA. They became world champions in 2010, their second time in the final.
Remember Nadal and his 22 grand slams. Now they’ve got Alcaraz. In track and field, hockey, Spain is a genuine global sporting power, not very different from Australia.
Since there is a possibility that Spain may end up playing Argentina in the final, here’s a story worth telling. When Lamine Yamal was a baby, his parents won a raffle in Barcelona. The prize was getting to meet one Barcelona player, and they got to meet Messi. So they took their baby to meet Messi and now it’s often said that it’s almost like Messi had found the baby to pass his football mantle to.
Also read: Lamine Yamal or Kylian Mbappe? There was never a discourse