After never having advanced to a football world cup semi-final before, the Spanish team or “La Roja” (The Reds) as the team is called in Spain, went all the way and secured the title of World Champion last Sunday.
“Podemos!” (“we can!”) was the anthem that accompanied them during this year’s world cup.
Millions of people around the world watched the Spanish people celebrate this historical victory in the streets all over Spain and the Spanish people never seemed more united.
With regards to unity this is not so easy in Spain. History has divided the different regions (especially Catalonia (the capital being Barcelona) and the Basque region) and many people take much more pride in their region than in their country as a whole. Even in the Spanish national team you could see players celebrating with their regional flags instead of the Spanish national flag.
What strikes me though, is that despite these cultural differences among the players, they were united on the pitch and came out stronger than any other team.
In the Barcelona office, we consist of people with origins from Portugal, Columbia, England, Germany (myself) and Spain. Having worked together towards common goals we have really learned to appreciate each other’s differences and regularly exchange stories about our experiences from the different countries. We love to have laughs at typical clichés from each country (of course I got to hear more than usual about us Germans when we watched the Spain-Germany semi-final game together), but in the end we have great respect for each other and know how cool it is to work with other young people from different parts of the world.
I believe that bringing different cultures together is one of the greatest challenges as the Managing Director of an office with employees from multiple nations; however, once a common ground or a certain unity is achieved, these teams are most likely to become the best.
When the finals were over and Spain had won for the first time in history, we all texted each other messages with “Viva España,” we went to celebrate on the streets and now continue on our own mission: Podemos!
If you like to read more about how the world cup influenced or did not influence the unity in Spain, I recommend this article.
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Great post Oli - a huge win for the spanish - a devastating defeat for the Dutch and a promising future for the Germans
Indeed!
Great post Oli “Podemos!”
Hi Oli, thanks for sharing how Spain is celebrating it´s victory in the World Cup. I like your mission: Podemos!
Cool post, Oli! Viva España! But in 4 years, it shall read “Deutschland ist Weltmeister!”.
Yes! Indeed