In the shadow of the state: The national team and the politics of national identity in Spain

Abstract

Spain is not a nation, National Unity was a reality historically imposed by the Absolute Monarchy and has been maintained all along by the political regimes of contemporary Spain. 1 Spanish national identity is complex and difficult to define. It has been and continues to be subject to political and ideological intervention and persuasion, as Solís suggests. The success of the Spanish national team in recent years, confirmed by the 2010 World Cup victory in Johannesburg and secured by Iniesta’s winning goal, suggested the unifying capacity of football in fusing symbols and rituals of shared identity, bringing together the historically contested ethnicities and nationalisms of the contemporary Spanish state as a focal point expressing what Quiroga has termed “dual identity” through which support for La Selección 2 can be reconciled with deeply rooted traditions of allegiance to regionally and locally based football identities and rivalries.