The World

My joy at Spain’s victory in the football last night is almost unconfined. I say almost because Spain were England’s companions as the great under-achievers of world soccer. Now they have won something. So it’s back to not so splendid isolation for the English.

At the beginning of the tournament, I speculated about reasons for longstanding Spanish footballing failure. Perhaps, it had something to do with a lack of a strong sense of nationhood in Spain?

Well, that theory has clearly not withstood the test of Torres. But how about the new theory - that footballing victory will create a surge of Spanish nationalism that will help to bind the nation together?

I’m afraid I’m not buying that either. It reminds me of the theory that the victory of a multi-racial French team in the 1998 World Cup was going to bury racism in France. Four years later, Jean-Marie Le Pen had made it through to the second round of the French presidential election.

I suspect that regional tensions in Spain are probably just as hard to uproot as racial tensions in France. I’m sure that the football last night will create a huge “feel good factor” in Spain for a little while. But, alas, these things tend not to last.