Spain, and the rest of the world, for that matter, look on as the Dutch take a free kick

Check out part one of Speakeasy’s “Americans Abroad” series here.

I found something odd about the rain in Spain. It doesn’t  fall gently in the plain, but pours from buckets. Buckets tossed by a drunken fan onto a crowd below, celebrating a historic World Cup win.

Last Wednesday night I found myself in the middle of Barcelona, Spain at the exact moment that the country reached their first World Cup final in its long history. My group of fellow abroad students made our way to the famous bar district a half hour before kickoff of the Spain-Germany semifinal, only to find out that we had arrived far too late to find a bar not packed to capacity.

After missing the first half hour of play combing the street for an open bar, we at long last found a place that was merciful enough to let people who had no place else to go watch from the back of the facility. Following a tame first half we made our way up closer to the screen and the excitement really began.

The second half saw both teams noticeably pressing for the goal that would surely put them through to the final. The crowd in Barcelona shared the urgency, and the moans and drawn breath could be heard from up and down the street.

At long last the deciding moment came, when Barcelona’s own Carlos Puyol send a powerful header past the keeper. The city might as well have been Soccer City, South Africa as the ball hit the back of the net.

The countdown to the nationwide party was on, and when the final whistle blew without much threat from Germany the bars surrounding the street seemed to explode, sending fans streaming into the street from all directions.

The throng of fans converged on the corner of La Rambla and one of its many side streets. La Rambla has been called the heartbeat of Barcelona, and after the game it pulsated with sound and energy as far as the eye could see in celebration for a team that it once hated.

Surprising to most uninformed observers, the Spanish national team was seen for years as a sign of oppression and was hated by most Barcelonans.

Francisco Franco rose to power as a dictator in the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War, and Barcelona, as the heart of the losing Republican side of the war, suffered under his brutal rule. Franco’s “White Terror” killed hundreds of thousands and outlawed the customs of any minority group—including those of the Catalan region that houses Barcelona.

After Franco’s death, wounds were slow to heal, and walking around the city today one sees more of the Catalan flag than of the official national one. Wednesday night was an important moment for a country still recovering from the horrors of half a century ago, and, most shocking of all, the game-winner was provided by a native son.

Puyol—along with David Villa, Xavi and Iniesta, among others—made it easy, at least for a night, to overlook the old injustices by giving them a rooting interest in “La Furia Roja.”

The scenes of joy on La Rambla would have been impossible even ten years ago, but as a foreigner it certainly didn’t seem like it. Chants of “Es-pañ-a” and the classic “Ole, Ole-Ole-Ole, Ole, Ole” echoed off of the centuries-old buildings that surround the street while the tenants of the apartments above took the opportunity to pour massive buckets of water onto the mob below. Even the national anthem, once used by Franco as a weapon, was sung loudly into the hot night.

The impromptu celebration was slow to break up before eventually moving to the many bars that crowd the street. On our walk back to our apartment the sounds of honking horns could be heard around the city. There had to have been more Spanish flags flying around in the streets then there had been since the war.

I am almost ashamed to admit it, but I was not in Spain for the final. Our group wanted to spend the weekend in Rome, and by an unhappy coincidence our plans turned out to be the weekend that our host country was playing in the World Cup final.

Even though Italy wasn’t in the final, there was electricity in the air around the great city on Sunday as it prepared for the game. Our group was lucky enough to stumble upon the FIFA Fanfest—basically just a huge screen in the park with between 50,000 and 75,000 people watching it—and found a spot to root on Spain.

The massive crowd was somehow organized enough to split right down the center between the Dutch and the Spanish fans. It certainly didn’t feel like Italy when looking out over the crowd decked out in either Orange or Red.

Neither nation had ever won the World Cup, so anxiety seemed to hang in the air as both fan bases waited for their squad to falter like every other year. The infamous vuvuzelas were being sold around the park and the buzzing that has been stuck in the head of every soccer fan for a month bellowed from the crowd.

The spectators lived and died with every attack—especially when Holland’s Arjen Robben broke through alone on the keeper twice without scoring.

When regular time ended still scoreless, the increasingly realistic chance of penalties jolted the crowd into desperation. Each side would have given anything for a goal but it was the Spanish who finally broke the deadlock.

Barcelona product Andrés Iniesta freed himself up at the edge of the box and the crowd—along with the nearly one billion people watching the game around the world—drew in a collective breath.

Iniesta finished with a powerful low strike and suddenly there was a contrasting combination of joy and pain from all parts of the park. The Spanish were in a frenzy of pure delight while the Dutch looked on in a combination of disbelief and horror; one Orange-clad fan beside me even had tears running down his face.

The Dutch fans stealthily slipped away back towards the city—presumably to drown their sorrows after yet another close call—and by the final whistle it was nearly a Spanish-only party in Rome.

We made our way into the heart of the crowd and joined in the wild celebrations. The emotion of the crowd and same chants from Wednesday’s victory mob made it feel like I was back on La Rambla.

The joy steadily built until the moment that had been in the making for 80 years, the presentation of the World Cup trophy to Spain, became a reality. It was pandemonium all around me and the passionate strains of the Spanish national anthem were probably loud enough to reach the homeland.

The famed Spanish steps in Rome were never more true to their name than they were after the game—we joined another celebratory mob of displaced Spaniards on our way back to our hostel.

The type of fandom on display both in Spain and in Rome were unlike anything that I had ever seen. Not better or worse, but certainly different. The emotions and the crowd had less restraint than the ones I’ve experienced at home, and it was easy to see how they got out of control during soccer’s hooligan period of the ‘80s.

Mired in rising unemployment and having a fractured populace, Sunday’s win gave Spain a dose of happiness and unity that is evident even today, nearly a week removed from the game. The gold star that signifies a World Cup title has been sewn onto the crest of every Spanish jersey for sale in the city, and Barcelona is salivating over the thought of getting to watch seven of the 11 starters for the final play for the club team this fall.

Coming from a country with considerably less soccer fandom than in Europe, it was incredible to see the joy that the victories brought to the Spanish people and the long-sought unity that it brought.

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