An article by Arcadi Espada in El Mundo is becoming a laughing stock for some. It states that “the magnitude of the Spanish disappointment in the World Cup requires more than a tactical analysis”, that “serious teams do not smile while the anthem plays, but when they collect the cup” and that “the outcome should not surprise those who observe the country's moral climate” and that “the elimination leaves urgent lessons for 2030”. It might seem, of course, that the columnist had the text ready days ago, awaiting Spain's defeat, and that a lack of filters and misfortune have caused it to be published to the great ridicule of the journalist and the media. Some illustrious journalists and people in the profession are taking advantage of this.
This is not a sauce that I intend to taste, however. Espada must have been under a very, very big rock for the last 96 hours not to find out about the Spanish team's victory. The article looks entirely like a parody of how a different outcome – Ferran Torres' shot crashes into the goalkeeper's gloves, penalties go in favor of Argentina – would have generated all sorts of articles bitterly analyzing the entire country based on the unpredictable on-field performance of about twenty young athletes. After all, we are talking about a columnist who once, just to provoke, published that Javier Cercas had been arrested in a raid on a brothel. Espada is – or wants to be – a fundamentalist of factuality. If he then revolted against the idea of literary truth that sometimes infiltrates journalism, the World Cup article can be seen as a denunciation of those who are categorical based on the chance of a sporting result. For me, the interesting debate is not whether it is a blunder or a provocation: it is whether the fact that irony is not captured is a goal in the opponent's or our own goal.
