Spain and the World Cup
José Ignacio Torreblanca, writing for the Financial Times, assesses Spain’s victory at the FIFA World Cup in light of the state of the country:
Rarely can sporting triumph have come as such a welcome distraction as World Cup victory has for Spain. … The Spanish economy is at the root of the problem. … 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.
More here.
