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Spain's national football
team gets a heroes' welcome as they parade through the streets of
Madrid on Monday.
(Photo: AP) |
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 Spain
Football World Champion first time in its history:
Andres Iniesta scored
with four minutes of extra time remaining to give Spain .....
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It's
Spain vs. Netherlands in football World Cup final |
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Madrid:
Spain's football team returned home to a jubilant nation and a huge
fiesta Monday after winning the World Cup, finally giving Spaniards
a break from months of economic gloom, political squabbling and
nationalist regions fighting to break away from the central
government.
The celebrations for the team will include a meeting with the king
and prime minister and an open-air bus ride through Madrid's
historic center.
At least several hundred thousand fans were expected to line the
streets to celebrate Spain's first World Cup title. Spain beat the
Netherlands 1-0 on Sunday in extra time.
Dozens of airport workers cheered from the runway as the plane,
flying Spanish flags from cockpit windows, taxied to a stop while
car horns could be heard honking in the distance. A special slogan
printed along the fuselage of the Iberia plane read, "Proud of our
National Team.
Champions." A roar of delight rose as team captain and goalkeeper
Iker Casillas stepped from the plane and raised the World Cup.
The crowd broke into chanting "Campeones, Campeones," meaning
"champions." The players, wearing the team jersey, walked from the
plane to a waiting Spanish football federation bus.
"It's very important, it helps us forget a lot of things, like the
economic crisis, for example, or people's domestic issues," said
Javier Sanchez, a 42-year-old photographer from Madrid.
But will the ecstasy last — could this be Spain's moment to unite
under a single flag, or is it a fleeting instance of patriotism? The
country has been depressed by a debt crisis, 20 percent unemployment
and nationalist regions fighting to separate from Spain.
Officials said about 75,000 fans celebrated the victory waving the
Spanish flag celebrated in Barcelona on Sunday night, where more
than 1.1 million people a day earlier protested a Spanish court
ruling that their autonomous Catalonia region must remain part of
Spain.
"I wouldn't have thought the euphoria over the football will last
very long," said Paul Preston, a Spain expert and history professor
at the London School of Economics.
"It may soften the blow of the economic news, but it won't have a
long-lasting effect.
"As far as current outrage in Catalonia about the recent decisions
of the constitutional tribunal, it will have little or no impact,"
he told The Associated Press in a phone interview. "The scale of the
outrage in Catalonia has to be seen to be believed." He said he
wasn't surprised that people had celebrated Spain's victory in
Catalonia and the Basque region, because he said that, while they
are a minority, a lot of Spanish nationalists live in those regions.
"There will be people who are just football-mad who are not
politically sensitive or active, who quite reasonably are in the
streets expressing their delight," Preston said. "That's perfectly
normal.
"But there are people who live in Catalonia who are Spanish
nationalists, who argue that too much Catalan is spoken. The same is
true of the Basque Country. There are plenty of Spanish nationalists
there too." About 2,000 people waving Spanish flags and wearing the
team's football jersey celebrated Sunday night in the Basque city of
Bilbao — actions rarely seen because of the violent campaign led by
separatist group ETA since 1968 to gain independence from Spain.
The fact that several of Spain's best players , like Xavi Hernandez,
Carles Puyol and Gerard Pique, are from the Catalonia region doesn't
sit well with many ordinary Catalans.
"It doesn't help the Catalans. It just proves they are mugs,"
Preston said. "If you are Catalan, you take the fact that many of
the players are Catalan as another example of how Spain is a
parasite that exploits Catalonia." Nevertheless, some Spaniards were
hopeful that this moment would unite the country like never before.
"It was as if this was unfinished business for Spain and so it's
been good for everyone," said Soledad Gonzalez, 51, a security guard
from Madrid. "I hope that, God willing, finally, the Spanish flag
means being Spanish and not being a fascist, as was the case not so
long ago." During the dictatorship of Gen. Francisco Franco
(1939-1975), Catalans, Basques and others were forbidden from
speaking their language and it was illegal to publish books in those
languages.
Some news reports saw the national team as an example to follow.
"It would be good if the collective enthusiasm for the team became a
stimulus for Spanish society in the face of the current problems and
even that it became the motive to demand that our country should
resemble and work like this group of young men," the ABC newspaper
said.
Spaniards who partied past midnight to celebrate dragged themselves
into work Monday, but were ready to launch the party again after the
team's arrival.
Hair salon owner Marisa Dalon stayed up celebrating until her grown
children finally arrived home at 3 a.m.
"It is the greatest day imaginable. We are so incredibly proud,"
beamed Dalon, 42.
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