Neither collective success, nor success of the country

The final success of the Spanish team in the FIFA Women’s World Cup, if it finally comes, will be appropriated, almost instantly, by a handful of men accustomed to using all kinds of ammunition in private wars, including those in which they have never they believed. “It is a success for the collective, a success for the country”, will be repeated ad nauseam and in all kinds of contexts, so let us remain very attentive to such or similar words because they will work as an almost infallible detector of cheeks, mercenaries, simple profiteers and some other philistine.

Reaching the final of any world competition should be directly equivalent to success, but we already know how this country tends to treat runners-up and runners-up, because depending on what, we are very given to establishing inescapable and even unquestionable criteria of equality. We know the path that has brought us here, that they are them and only them: the soccer players. And, also, that we have left them alone too often. We also know the difficulties they have had to endure while building this road, some as serious and unfortunate as that sponsored hunt for those who dared to claim professionalism, respect and dignity.

The fact that Spain has one of the best teams in the World Cup does not mean that this is the best Spain possible, a team built on the infinite ambition of the soccer players present, but above all those absent Mapi Leon, Patri Guijarro, Claudia Pina, Lola Gallardo, Ainhoa ​​Moraza, Nerea Eizaguirre, Amaiur Sarriegui. Also that of Sandra Panos, punished in public as a warning to future sailors. It is an unthinkable fact in the men’s team, but tolerated without much fuss in the women’s team, especially now that the team has just reached the final without anyone involved in the affair having to loosen a single hole in their belt, well on the contrary. We would sin innocent —and even accomplices— if we began to normalize threats, contempt, and public discredit as admissible weapons to achieve certain ends.

Luis Rubiales has soon jumped to claim the part that, according to what he seems to believe, corresponds to him and his people in the deal, including the bet redoubled by a Jorge Vilda whom he considers mistreated and vilified, it is not very clear by whom: at good others will surely come in his wake as Mandrake the Magician, the illusionist vigilante. Victory has many fathers, as we are beginning to verify, and by now we should be fairly aware of where paternalism is leading us beyond Madrid, which is the place where all the excesses that we can imagine will converge shortly after our soccer players return to Spain with the cup.

As already happened with the boys in South Africa, the narrative framework will move to a terrain of supposed neutrality in which the work of Rubiales, Vilda and company will matter more than that carried out by the clubs, especially by a Barcelona that contributes the block central of the team, the hard core of the rebels and even the only one executed by this kind of new inquisition. “A success for the collective, a triumph for the country”, remember. They will be the same ones who labeled as traitors or capricious a group of women who stood up to power and laid the foundations for something similar to a future with which they feel minimally comfortable. Or as comfortable, at least, as those who continue to live in the most rancid rooms of the past.

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