Spain’s World Cup shows that Pigs can fly | Financial Times https://www.ft.

com/content/eda5d418-8de3-11df-9153-00144feab49a

Opinion Madrid

Spain’s World Cup shows that Pigs can fly

All you have to do to reach the promised land is persevere, writes José Ignacio Torreblanca

José Ignacio Torreblanca JULY 12 2010

Rarely can sporting triumph have come as such a welcome distraction as World Cup
victory has for Spain. After the trials of the past six months, the flag-waving and
dancing in fountains that followed the extra-time winning goal were as much about
relief as euphoria. The Spain of 2010 is a country wracked by a crisis of confidence. Its
miraculous transformation from an isolated, authoritarian, conflict-ridden backwater
into a modern, democratic and affluent society has felt like a distant memory.

The Spanish economy is at the root of the problem. It is a shambles, with

unemployment hovering around 20 per cent and little prospect of a job-creating
recovery. In politics the opposition seems more comfortable playing to the opinion
polls than trying to build a credible alternative to a government whose popularity has
suffered heavily. And, in spite of the victory for the national team, Spain’s nationality
problem has not gone away: on Saturday night hundreds of thousands of Catalans
demonstrated in Barcelona behind a banner stating: “We are a nation. We have the
right to decide”, in response to a ruling by the Constitutional Court, made public the
day before, that nullified important parts of a new statute governing Catalan
autonomy. With Judge Baltasar Garzón’s dogged investigation of Franco-era crimes
encouraging a fit of navel-gazing, it is easy to see that the Spanish were in desperate
need of sporting distraction.

The problems extend beyond the country’s borders. The World Cup started just as the
ill-starred Spanish presidency of the European Union was coming to an end. Madrid
faced the challenge of dealing with a confusing post-Lisbon treaty EU, with José Luis
Rodríguez Zapatero, the prime minister, and his foreign minister Miguel Angel
Moratinos often having to take a back seat while Herman Van Rompuy and Lady
Ashton, the two new EU supremos, built up their offices. The presidency, planned as a
showcase for Madrid’s central role in Europe, ended up with Spain’s international
reputation badly damaged as a result of the economic crisis. For a country in love with
Europe, discovering that the EU can sometimes be a harsh taskmaster was quite a
shock.

1 de 2 26/1/21, 08:04
Spain’s World Cup shows that Pigs can fly | Financial Times https://www.ft.com/content/eda5d418-8de3-11df-9153-00144feab49a

Thank goodness then for La Roja (the Reds) and their footballing rescue of a troubled
nation. The style of the rescue was also important. While in economic terms Spain
was depicted by its critics as one of the “Pigs” (the derisive term for the struggling
economies of Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain) wallowing in the mud, on the pitch
La Roja played with a style that was a credit to their nation. Previous Spanish
problems of individualism were set aside by a team that moulded its remarkable
talents into a true collective. Spaniards recognised the players as ordinary boys, rather
than preening and overpaid superstars. Football revived a pride in the Spanish flag
that 30 years of democratic progress had not been able to do. On Sunday, Spaniards
were once again the “Prussians of the South”, as they had been dubbed by their EU
partners in the late 1980s – well-organised hard-workers seeking a common goal.

So now competition is over, what next for Spain? There is an awareness that its
economy is going to have to rely upon research and innovation rather than
construction and cheap money, although moving from one to the other is obviously
easier said than done. To reach a promised land of jobs and growth will first mean
trekking through a desert of tough adjustments. These have already begun. Fearing
that Spain might follow Greece on the road to international monitoring or even
expulsion from the promised (euro)land, the government of Mr Zapatero staged a
dramatic U-turn in economic policy, with a package of budget cuts, tax rises, labour
market reform, and cuts in public sector pay and pensions.

The public knows these measures are inevitable, but they hurt nevertheless. The
triumph on the football field may help people be more optimistic. After all, La Roja
lost their first match but stuck to the task, and won in the end in an
uncompromisingly physical final. The lesson Spaniards will take to their hearts is
that, no matter how tough the challenge ahead, all you have to do to reach the
promised land is persevere. Pigs can indeed fly.

The writer is senior fellow and head of the Madrid office of the European Council on
Foreign Relations.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2021. All rights reserved.

2 de 2 26/1/21, 08:04