From chokers to conquistadors

There was something delightfully fitting about Andres Iniesta providing the decisive touch to the Spanish quest for the football Holy Grail. As John Dykes of ESPN observed, the sprightly Barcelona midfielder had embodied the ethos of the Spanish campaign at FIFA 2010 more than any other player. The present Spanish team under Vicente Del Bosque had distinguished itself from its earlier “flattering to deceive” World Cup avatars with a grittiness and tenacity that had empowered it to see off challenges from mighty adversaries like Germany and Portugal. And it was Iniesta that singularly exemplified these qualities – often dictating the tempo of the Spanish game and, ultimately, sealing the victory against the Dutch with that knock-out punch of a goal in the dying minutes of the extra time in Soccer City.





Despite the shocking defeat against Switzerland in their opening group game, the Spanish campaign this time around was marked by a resolve to refute the choruses of skeptics who had billed the team’s European Cup win in 2008 as a flash in the pan. The Spaniards were determined to bury the tag of chokers once and for all. And bury they did, and thus broke their World Cup jinx with their final win against the much-fancied Dutch.

    

Spain's monumental achievement has generated a flood of commentary seeking to read a wider political meaning into it. Many an animated pundit has found it hard to resist the temptation to elevate the Spanish triumph from merely a great sporting achievement to an event that portends a path-breaking and durable realignment in the Spanish political and cultural landscape. That a team comprising players from the various nationalities of Spain, a veritable melange of Basque, Catalan, and Castilian flavors, could project a united face on their road to world football domination is touted as a pointer to a collective Iberian yearning to wiggle out of the strong current of fragmented regionalism that has shaped Spain's identity as a nation for long. It has been remarked that the Spanish people are all set to dismantle the divisive legacy of General Franco for good.

However, this excessively sanguine view, smacking almost of a pitiable ignorance of the fractious and highly contested character and history of European nation states and national identities, has not gone completely unchallenged. Writing for the Counterpunch magazine, Harry Browne instills a measure of sobriety into the largely overblown examination of the Spanish World Cup triumph and its implications:

"Not only are sporting victories fleeting, but as much as we love our football it turns out we usually know the difference between the carnival politics of a soccer tournament and the real ones of our divided societies."