Miguel Martinez wasn’t quite sure how to react. On Monday night, he found himself standing outside a bar in Bilbao, intermittently listening to colleagues’ conversations and staring at the television screen inside. He said he had been keenly following Spain’s progress in the European football championships and that work travel would not hinder him.
He watched the national team’s first two games at home in Seville with his 13-year-old son. He said the city had been caught up in the severe major-event craze that engulfs Europe every two years. The balcony is decorated with Spanish flags. The streets are littered with Spanish jerseys. Spain’s victory sparked wild celebrations.
However, as far as Mr Martinez knows, Bilbao is somewhat immune. There are many flags hanging from the balconies, but they represent Palestine, pride, or most commonly the Basque Country itself, in the form of the region’s traditional Ikurriña. The Spanish flag only flies on a few official buildings.
Mr. Martinez knows why. The Basque Country, a mountainous region in northern Spain bordering the Bay of Biscay and the Pyrenees, has long considered itself distinct from the rest of the country. It has its own language, culture and identity. The Basque struggle for autonomy and even independence has long and bloody roots.
Therefore, he is keen to respect his hosts and not cause any offense. When Spain scored early in their third group game against Albania, he and his colleagues responded with a brief, silent cheer – more of an exhale than they might have shown in Sevilla. The kind of happy indulgence that comes out.
“It might be better to be cautious,” he said. “I don’t know what people here think about the national team.”
His anxiety over the years would have been justified. Although Spain played its first home game in 1921 at San Mamés, home of Bilbao’s enthusiastically supported local side Athletic Club, the men’s national team has not visited the city since 1967 , which seems to admit that it is not safe here.
In 2014, when it was announced that Bilbao would be a candidate to host several games at Euro 2020, including three that were designated as Spain’s “home” games, a leading Basque politician said: Ideas will inevitably end up with “tanks on the street”.
Ultimately, when the postponed match finally took place, the coronavirus pandemic meant Bilbao were dropped from hosting duties and replaced by Sevilla.
There has been a suspicion that moving the venue to a more accepting area would be a relief for the authorities: after all, Athletic Bilbao fans habitually mock the Spanish national anthem. Basque National Party leader Andoni Ortuzar said during the World Cup that he wanted England to win, not Spain.
On the surface, not much has changed this year. This month, one of Ortuzar’s colleagues, Aitor Esteban, admitted that he would not support Spain during Euro 2024. team,” he said. “If I’m a supporter, it’s going to be a supporter for everyone else.”
The absence of Spanish flags and jerseys from the streets of Bilbao seemed to indicate that many others shared the same sentiment. “For most of the Basque media, what happened to the Spanish national team was news, but they did not follow it with any particular enthusiasm,” said Basque history professor Joseba Aguirreazcuñaga. Joseba Agirreazkuenaga) said.
(A look at the newsstands the day after Spain defeated Albania confirmed this assessment: Spain’s national newspapers put the victory front and center. Most of their Basque counterparts mentioned it only in passing .
However, for Inaki Alvarez, who is playing football with his nephews in the Plaza Nueva in the heart of Bilbao’s cobbled old town, things are different. “Twenty years ago it was more complicated,” he said. “There are people who support them. There are people who don’t. There are people who don’t care. But before that you wouldn’t see anyone wearing a Spanish jersey in Bilbao. Now, not many, but if there were, it would be It’s okay. Much calmer than before.
This is demonstrated, for example, by the fact that it was easy for Mr Martinez to find a bar showing Spanish matches.
According to legend (possibly apocryphal), in 2008, there was only one bar in Bilbao with a big screen showing the match between Spain and Germany in that year’s European Cup final: Ein Prosit, a German-themed café a few steps from Mayua The square is just a few steps away. It was said to have been allowed to broadcast the match with the tacit understanding that everyone involved wanted Germany to win.
Now Mr. Martinez and his colleagues have six sites to choose from on the Licenciado de Pozo, a street that stretches from the city center to San Mamés, as well as many in the old town.
Dani Álvarez – no relation to Iñaki – heads the news service of Basque public broadcaster Radio Euskadi. The change, he says, is largely evidence of a slow series of tectonic shifts in Basque culture.
“We have lived through years of terror, which has made the Basque Country very welcoming and very tolerant,” he said. “Meanwhile, the digital generations who grew up without ETA being active do not understand why their parents or grandparents wanted Spain to lose. They now naturally live with a double identity: they easily think of themselves as both Basques are Spanish again.
But he admitted it could also have something to do with the distinctly Basque style of the current Spanish squad. The region’s two biggest clubs, Atlético and Real Sociedad, based in San Sebastian, have always supplied the national team with a large number of players, but this year’s harvest has been particularly rich.
Of the 26 players representing Spain at the tournament, eight are from Euskadi, the administrative concept of the Basque region, or Euskal Herria, the slightly larger Basque spiritual homeland. (Ninth place, Robin Le Normand, was born in France but played for Real Sociedad.)
Coach Luis de la Fuente is from the neighboring province of La Rioja, but is Basque in the footballing sense: he spent 11 years of his career at Athletic Bilbao, a club that still fields only one player Basque players. Mr Alvarez said the connection made it harder for fans not to want certain parts of the Spanish squad to perform well this summer.
“Players like Unai Simon and Nico Williams are not just part of the team, they are leaders of the team,” he said, referring to the two sports stars. “They are a reference for Basque football. Their success helped Athletic Bilbao gain international fame. So why would you go against a team full of players you love?
However, it’s unclear how long this sentiment will last. Mr Martinez and his colleagues were not in any way blamed for their clever celebration of Spain’s goal, but the result was not met with any raucous cheers. “Of course there are people who want Spain to win,” Mr Alvarez said. “But maybe it’s a more personal thing.”
Minutes after the end of Spain’s match against Albania, which advanced to Sunday’s round of 16, a truly raucous cheer erupted in the old town: the kind of unbridled joy that often indicates that someone, somewhere, has fallen. .
The epidemic soon spread to a bar, where another match that night, Italy’s match against Croatia, was being shown on the bar’s screen. The Italian team equalized the score at the last minute to ensure advancement to the next round. A group of Italians huddled around a screen to watch didn’t hesitate to let everyone know how happy they were.
