Some who tried to save Rubiales (there are people pa tó as El Gallo said) they argued with me about the risk of losing the 2030 World Cup. One even included Andreu Camps, the secretary who was later ejected, in the package, whom he named as the key man in the operation. It is clear that it was not like that. And I even want to think that, as Segurola told me yesterday, this purification that our world champions are causing has been able to work favorably. Faced with the image of a country of gorillas that Rubiales suggested after the final, the subsequent collective reaction has benefited us. And also their own title. Only Germany and Spain have the World Cup for men and women.
This designation puts Spain in the foreground, will provoke investments in infrastructure, will bring visitors and will leave us with much improved stadiums, some of which are new. The CVC plan is now seen in a new light. And it must improve ties with two neighboring countries with which, why hide it, we have been living with a certain misgiving. There is no way to know each other and share tasks. This three-way World Cup (with a prologue on the other side of the pond, a tribute due to the centenary of the first, held in Uruguay) was already projected for 2026, but the choice fell on the United States, Canada and Mexico. Curious decision in that it coincided with Donald Trump’s proclamations to separate the country from him.
Anyway, the World Cup returns to Spain. Shared with five other countries, but in a model that reserves the main role for us. And for those of me in my fifth and next years, our memory goes back to 1982, when we organized it. So alone and already assuming an expansion, from 16 to 24 teams. So spreading the weight is not bad.
What was left of that? Let’s just say it didn’t go very well. Our team gave the song, went through the phase towed by the referees, we are not going to fool ourselves at this point, and in the second group they fell without appeal. It was played in 14 cities and 17 stadiums that had to be extensively renovated, with a promise of public aid that was not fulfilled. Many clubs got more trapped than they already were, and in the future they would get even more trapped, hiding new waste in that historical debt of the State. Thus even a Sanitation Plan, when new television contracts appeared (Autonómicas and Canal +) that covered holes, but only that.
But it was a good World Cup, with many things to remember. Above all, Italy remained, champion with its wise and scientific game, and with the goals of the final celebrated in a singular way by Sandro Pertini, an old anti-fascist fighter and at that time a venerable old man, whose outpourings made King Juan Carlos, then at his peak, laugh. of popularity. And also Brazil, with its samba football in Seville played to a cheerful rhythm that was highlighted by a dancing kite. The Canarinha It was, in the absence of ours, the favorite team of the Spanish, who suffered their defeat in old Sarriá precisely against the Italians as something of their own.
It was also the World Cup of Maradona’s expulsion, of Schummacher’s unpunished atrocity against Battiston, of the emir of Kuwait who wanted to withdraw his team, of the 10 goals conceded by El Salvador and of the dirty cookie between Germany and Austria to leave out Algeria, something that outraged everyone in El Molinón.
But it was, I insist, a good World Cup, in which the best won, at least in my opinion. And in the following years we experienced tourist growth in our country, especially among Italians.
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