Spain has now almost got used to winning, and the celebrations are short-lived

To mark the Spanish national team’s second World Cup victory, the summer celebrations were widely attended and shared across all of Spain’s cities, including those in the Basque Country and Catalonia, and culminated in the team’s arrival at Madrid airport and a bus tour through the city centre, with around two million people celebrating in the capital. The following day, however, people returned to work as normal, and the newspapers gradually stopped writing about the national team, filling their pages almost exclusively with transfer news at first and then with La Liga fixtures. Of course, even now, weeks on, there are still some traces of Spain’s World Cup victory. It was not quite the same as in the previous tournament won by Argentina, when Buenos Aires was filled with five million fans in a celebration that spread not only horizontally – creating a human tide whose boundaries were impossible to make out – but also vertically, with many people climbing rather precariously up lampposts to get a better view and wave flags. In Buenos Aires and other cities, months later, there were dozens of murals of Messi, Di María and Dibu Martínez in almost every neighbourhood, as well as city buses featuring the World Cup heroes (in Madrid, too, a red metro train dedicated to the players ran during the World Cup).

Throughout the Spanish summer, the streets were filled with people wearing the Selección’s shirt. Adidas may well dispute the figures, but the impression is that the away kit (the white one the players wore for the semi-final against France, but not in the final against Argentina) was the most popular. While fans in American stadiums appeared to be wearing mainly the red version, once back home they evidently switched to purchasing the white one, which is certainly more stylish and perhaps better suited to the warmer months. The fact is, it really does seem to have been a huge hit. There was a rush to buy them, even when the new version with two stars was released. As always, street vendors around Puerta del Sol were quick to update their non-genuine merchandise, while souvenir shops have also introduced T-shirts celebrating the victory; however, those appear to be aimed primarily at tourists, whereas Spaniards continue to wear the official match shirt.

Compared to Argentina, there are not many football-themed murals in Spain. One was created in the days following the victory in Barcelona, depicting Ferran Torres, who scored the winning goal and was still a Blaugrana player at the time. However, TvBoy’s artwork was immediately defaced, probably by someone linked to the Catalan independence movement. The city of Salamanca has offered to host the artwork in Castile and León: Salamanca has a neighbourhood near the city centre, the Barrio del Oeste, which is open to street art. Here, immediately after the victory in New Jersey, a doorway was painted red with two yellow stars, in front of which passers-by can take a selfie. The World Cup victory is also making its mark on supermarket shelves. Breakfast biscuits featuring the players of La Roja as collectable stickers are on sale, with Nico Williams, Fabián Ruiz and Mikel Merino pictured on the cardboard packet, although all the players are included inside. The shelves also stock chocolate bars with the players’ silhouettes embossed on them.

The World Cup stickers – known as ‘cromos’ in Spain – were also a hit. Children swapped them throughout the summer, even though the men’s and women’s La Liga sets had been released in the meantime. Even so, it is difficult to compare this with what happened in Argentina: once the World Cup was over, Parque Rivadavia was filled with patient parents accompanying their children to swap ‘figuritas’ (as they are commonly known there). On the pitch, Spain gave Argentina a masterclass in football in the final; off the pitch, however, the Argentines remain ahead in terms of the passion with which they live and breathe the sport. Since the end of July, a book on Spain’s victory has been available in bookshops – a celebratory ‘instant book’ that can also be found in the window display at Librerías Deportivas Esteban Sanz, a veritable institution in this genre and a truly unique case throughout Europe. Further print runs are expected, and a docuseries is scheduled for release on Prime Video by the end of the year: four episodes dedicated to La Roja’s journey (it was ‘el Sabio’ Luis Aragonés who pushed for the national team to be called that).

Although the number of people counted on the streets is probably higher than that recorded after the World Cup victory in South Africa, the impression is that fourteen years ago the celebrations were more spontaneous and heartfelt. “Yo soy español, español, español...” was the chant heard everywhere in those days, even on the islands. It was their first World Cup victory: of course, there had been the thrilling European Championship two summers earlier after a forty-four-year wait, but the World Cup is always something different. Perhaps back then there were also many emotional stories that had stirred the Spanish people even more deeply: Iniesta’s winning goal, as he found himself celebrating in a white T-shirt bearing a marker-pen inscription dedicated to Dani Jarque (“siempre con nosotros”), a team-mate who had died just a few months earlier; or the love stories in the newspapers, such as those between Piqué and Shakira and between Casillas and the journalist Sara Carbonero, whom the goalkeeper kissed during a live interview just after the match. For the Spanish, that World Cup was experienced in much the same way as Italy’s in 1982, as opposed to that of 2006. Spain has now become accustomed to winning: since 2008, it has won half of the major tournaments in which it has taken part – five out of ten competitions.

Partly thanks to the large number of Basque and Barça players, the celebrations were widely shared across all regions – in this respect, perhaps even more so than in 2010. However, for its upcoming home matches, the Federation has chosen traditionally friendly stadiums: the match against Croatia on 29 September will be played at the Ramón Sánchez-Pizjuán Stadium in Seville, whilst the match against the Czech Republic on 3 October will take place at the Carlos Tartiere Stadium in Oviedo.