Why La Roja shines, in white, black & brown

July 14, 2024 will be a date to remember in Spain. Carlos Alcaraz’s victory in Wimbledon and the unexpected success of the Spanish squad at the Euros were something more than a breath of fresh air. They also had a message for the world and to Spain itself as a nation. “I’m Spanish, what do you want me to win?”, a successful catchphrase of the early 2010s, got back into circulation on social media. The two victories have also shown Spain as a changing country finding its way to be, while the far-right rises in the Western world.The two wins’ accurate comparison is neither with the 2010 Fifa World Cup, nor Nadal’s long run in tennis. Instead, we have to go back 32 years to the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. That was not only a sports success. It was a public demonstration that Spain isn’t only about bulls and paella, and that Spaniards aren’t short, big-bellied, lazy people, but modern, free, arty and talented citizens of a likeable country.How did that happen? Was there a sudden explosion of talent? If anything, there was a sudden explosion of method.Before 1992, sports success in Spain was the result of individual effort. But in 1987, after Barcelona was nominated to host the Olympics, a plan was put in place. Program ADO, a non-profit govt-based institution, gave young sports talents the opportunity to worry about nothing but their careers. Funded with public and private resources, it gave amateur athletes the tools for success: from scholarships that, de facto, equalised their economic situation to that of professional athletes, to medical, psychological and structural aides like CARs (high performance centres). Alcaraz was trained in former tennis player Juan Carlos Ferrero’s academy shaped as a CAR. Plus, the end of Cold War also brought unexpected assets. Coaches and trainers of the former red bloc could move to Spain to add a key element: technique and expertise. Those were the facts behind Spain’s 1992 success. Not just effort, but method; not just talent, but hard work; not just individuals, but a national goal birthed by public-private joint ventures. Since 1992 until the 2022 Beijing Winter Games, Spanish sportsmen and sportswomen have won 144 summer and winter Olympic medals. From 1896 to 1988, they had won just 27 medals, a number that was almost equalled during the Barcelona Games alone, with 22 medals.While sports grew in Spain, the country was growing too. During the 1990s and early 2000s, its economy and quality of life saw unprecedented growth. Just before the 2010 debt crisis, it had the 3rd highest GDP per capita in the Eurozone. But the debt crisis broke some basic rules of the welfare state: public expenses for those in need had to be cut. A suddenly impoverished country became the breeding ground for a new kind of far-right, not based in Franco’s fascist dictatorship nostalgia, but in a nationalistic, racist endeavour that has seduced thousands of youngsters.The far-right rise clashed with an undeniable fact – that Spaniards were moving to other countries, fertility (1.16 child per woman) and birth (6.7%) rates were falling, and immigration had become a need. For Spain, and much of Europe, rise of nationalism is based on the vote of a frightened middle class that fears impoverishment without being poor. This comes with the usual fake news that sets crimes as a consequence of immigrants and illegal aliens, a lie that’s been repeatedly debunked by official data. Although the sports method remains unchanged, immigration is changing the skin of Spain. Success has made Spanish sportsmen and sportswomen a valuable – though not always affordable – good for Spanish professional teams. Only three of the 23 players (13%) that won the World Cup in 2010 played for foreign teams. In 2024, this percentage has risen to 26.9%. And some of them, such as Rodri, Fabian and Dani Olmo, have short or no experience in Spanish domestic tournaments; they’re migrants themselves.As it happened in 1992, the response to the existential debate of what we Spaniards are comes from the pitch. Young footballers Lamine Yamal (17) and Nico Williams (22) set the bar; a 17-year-old minor son of migrants and the son of an illegal alien now represent the possibility of a future against racism and warped nostalgia. Spanish society has to choose now. Between its past and its future. Between its angels and its demons.