Vamos España!

Why does “la selección española” have such a hold on me? Why am I such a huge fan of la selección Española in fútbol? I love sports, I love España and it gives a sense of being part of something; plus more recently, as an immigrant in Spain, it gained a symbolic value of a tangible way I can show I am part of Spain./

My first memories of watching fútbol in Spain were at 19 as I spent a semester living in Toledo with a family. I remember asking my “parents” which team they cheered for, but Toledo was in the Segunda División (it’s now dropped a couple of levels) and they kind of liked Atlético Madrid but weren’t avid fans of any one team. I became more interested the following summer, when I – now 20 – studied in Madrid. It was during a Eurocopa, and I vividly recall watching one match on a small black-and-white TV outside a bar along Passeig de Colom during a weekend trip to Barcelona. I was fascinated reading the sports dailies and seeing how Madrid papers starkly favored Real Madrid players and Barcelona papers favored Barcelona players. This was in the days of Raúl. I adopted España as my men’s fútbol team. The U.S. women were already top-notch in soccer, having won the World Cup in both 1991 and 1999, but the U.S. men had at that point only advanced past group stage once since World War II. Spain’s women have only been federated since the 1980s and first qualified for the World Cup in 2015.

I was in love with Spain very early in my study abroad time. And to me, what better way to show your love for a place than to support its sports team? Sports have always been a huge part of my life – among the things I still love as much as when I was a kid, along with books, the beach and since teen years, running. And rooting for a sports team is visible and easy to see.

I have memories of rooting for sports teams from when I was about the age of Lamine Yamal’s 3 ½-year-old brother, Keyne – you know, the toddler who has captured the hearts of everybody this Mundial. The Iowa Hawkeyes in basketball were my first sports love, and I was a big St. Louis Cardinals baseball fan as a kid – I became neutral in baseball once I became a baseball reporter; and I also became a big Notre Dame fan when I went to college there. There were individual athletes, such as Jackie Joyner-Kersee or Rafael Nadal, along the way, too. So adding Spain soccer was a natural.

But my devotions within Spain were always divided, so I never picked a club team until very recently leaning into Barça since moving here. I studied in Toledo and Madrid, loved Barcelona the most most of a city, interned at Real Madrid (I even finished fourth in an internal World Cup pool – yes, the American one finished fourth among Spaniards who worked for the world’s biggest football club), went to work at ESPN, almost got a job at Barça … Having spent eight years as a sports reporter, it felt relatively simple to root for the best storyline and for no team to be dominant within LaLiga. I would root for Spanish teams to advance against any team from any other league in Champions League play, and if Spanish teams faced one another, I would decide based on storylines of that season. But la selección española, I could root for them with no complications. Vamos España!

Also thinking back 15-20 years ago, it was easier to find Champions League and international tournaments on TV in the U.S. than LaLiga games. Then came the golden era of 2008 to 2012: Euro Champion, World Cup Champion, Euro Champion. Some say your peak formative years as a sports fan are from around 7 to 12 years – in terms of my association with Spain, that’s how old I was then … Plus I was interning at Real Madrid the summer Spain won the World Cup, and what better place to experience that?! Back in the U.S. then, both during grad school in Philly and living in NYC, I had Spanish friends and friends who were really into fútbol (sometimes both).

In recent years, as an immigrant to Spain since a little over 4 years ago (and having attempted to move here 8 years ago), I think there’s an added sense of blended identity. How can you show that you are trying to support your new nation? Yes, I speak Spanish, and read/understand/speak some Catalá and Valenciano, but I will always have an accent, and my looks will always give me away as “not from here.” What’s something that is pretty widespread popular? Perhaps I should have become a lover of jamón ibérico, but I don’t eat pork. I do love a good sobremesa, but how does one show that? Sports it is. Not everybody loves sports, but a pretty big swath of the population at least has some interest. And when it comes to the Mundial, it’s a different level.

This selección has especially captured my heart over the past several years, and particularly living in Barcelona. I’ve become a big fan of the women’s team as well, a team that won the World Cup in their third time ever qualifying, oh btw. But today is the Men’s World Cup Final, so focusing in on the men, here’s some of what I love …

16-year-old Lamine Yamal jubilantly pairing with Nico Williams for a young duo to help lead the team to a Euro championship in 2024. Rodri being just consistently solid and a head and shoulders above the competition. Oyarzabal quietly being a top goal scorer. Unai Simón being doubted as whether he should start at goalkeeper over David Raya and Joan García, then holding the world to a goal (please keep that up against Messi tonight). A slew of Barça players, from Lamine & Garcia to Pau Cubarsí to Ferran to Pedri to Gavi to Dani Olmo. Cucurella sometimes coming off to the world as a bad guy but having a heart of gold. Borja Iglesias standing up for all that is good in the world, and we couldn’t need it more. And on and on and on.

So tonight, and every night, Vamos España.

A por ello.