Spain wins Trump’s American World Cup, the most political of possible victories

The one that won in New York is also Spain’s Pedro Sanchezwho prevailed over Argentina’s Javier Mileyin Trump’s house. It is not just a game of stickers and political personalities who are profoundly distant from each other. Politics and football have always been intertwined dimensions but this edition of the World Cup will also be remembered for the victory of the team furthest away, in terms of origin and affinity, from Trumpism which also attempted to colonize football, the culturally least American sport of all.

Spain, more than other European national teams, is the natural expression of the opposition to the idea of ​​football and the power that the president of FIFA Gianni Infantino he attempted to sublimate himself in the American World Cup. The scandal of the failed disqualification of Folarin Baloguna striker for the US national team punished with expulsion during the match against Bosnia-Herzegovina, was the tip of an iceberg made up of interference and forced propaganda. Including the exaggerations of the final, with the interval between the first and second half given over to the logic of a Super Bowl-style spectacle and extended to twenty-seven interminable minutes. A heresy for the fifteen minute liturgy that top-level football had never abandoned before on this scale.

Spain’s victory is also a profoundly different victory from Argentina’s four years ago. In Qatarin the World Cup played in the winter, Leo Messi celebrated by paying homage to the Arab power. The Emir of Qatar, Tamim bin Hamad Al Thaniput a tunic, the Bisht, on his shoulders, one of the items of clothing usually used by sovereigns and leaders during the most important ceremonies. And that highly symbolic photo went around the world. In New York, the captain of Spain Rodri he firmly invited Trump to stay in his place, on the sidelines of the photos with the World Cup. A profoundly different way of celebrating, keeping power at a safe distance, which in itself has a significant political value. Not only because Sanchez is the European leader furthest from Trump but also because Spain, today, is also the antithesis of the Trumpist drift of football.