The victory of playing against Spain and losing

The right-wing media is excited by the defeat of the Basque pelota team against Spain. The World It even puts it on the front page, when it is clear that if the result had been the opposite, it would have barely managed three badly turned lines on some inside left-hand page. "Spain cools the nationalist coven and defeats Euskadi in Basque pelota," they write. It is already known that "to fear them" and "I'm Spanish, what do you want me to win?They are expressions of patriotism as healthy as quinoa, while those of the historical nationalities are mere village tantrums of people of little world or the work of witches, as it turns out.

Let's leave aside the small detail that the two representatives of the blue one –because that's the color of the Spanish kit– are named Erika Mugartegui and Arai Lejardi, two names that don't exactly seem to hail from the Carabanchel or Chamberí neighborhoods. The great shortsightedness, when you treat the news like this, is the inability to understand that the Basque victory doesn't consist of having more or less points, but simply having been able to compete normally. Having a Basque national team, or a Catalan national team—what there is of Scotland in the United Kingdom without so much fuss—is the most reasonable option if you truly believe in plurinational states and, therefore, let each state choose under which colors they want to practice a certain sport. In fact, the Spanish federation has challenged the Basque national team's presence in this Nations League before the Court of Arbitration for Sport, which has yet to issue a ruling. Here's another interesting battleground to follow: that of the stubborn centralist Spanish nationalists against the wall of diversity, including their media battering rams who today celebrate the Basque defeat with their frontline badly battered.