Five weeks of competition paralyzed the world during the celebration of the men's Football World Cup. It has been the most important event of recent years and the Spanish team of Lamine Yamal, Pau Cubarsí, Ferran Torres, Pedri and company celebrated the triumph in a final decided in extra time against Argentina (1-0). La roja was the best squad of the 48 that took part in the most extensive edition in dates and teams. FIFA, governed by Gianni Infantino, doubled down on the bet compared to the Qatar World Cup. More countries involved, more matches (104) and, ultimately, more money at stake. Even hydration breaks were normalized in the middle of both halves for advertising reasons.The revenue pie of this World Cup in the United States, Mexico, and Canada amounts to 15 billion dollars, according to data provided by FIFA itself, an amount that represents double (+100%) the figures obtained in the 2022 tournament. The prizes for the 48 participating federations amounted to 655 million, 50% more than in Qatar. Spain, as the winning team, pocketed 50 million, of which a large part went to the players and coaches. 750,000 gross euros per footballer, that is, around 377,000 net in the case of those who play for Barça, where taxation is a bit higher than in other regions of the state such as Madrid, Galicia, Navarra or the Basque Country.

After the World Cup hangover, can we, Catalans, draw any useful lessons from this happy outcome in the most important sporting competition on the planet?Spain's victory has pleased me. Nine Catalan players and eight from Barça would be reason enough to support the national team. But the main reason is another: a way of understanding competition has prevailed that also applies to politics.It has been said that the red team won because it was, above all, a team. Faced with teams full of stars – Brazil, England, Portugal or France – Spain did not depend on a single name. Its strength has not been isolated talent, but cohesion. The whole has weighed more than the sum of its parts.It is true. But it is not enough to be a pineapple. It is not enough to have a locker room, nor to invoke great words, nor to confuse intensity with intelligence.Besides a team, to win you need something more prosaic and more decisive: a plan.

The 2026 World Cup final between Spain and Argentina, which was decided by a 1-0 Spanish victory, left several controversies beyond the result. From refereeing decisions to post-match incidents, including the unexpected prominence of Donald Trump, these are some of the scenes that have generated the most controversy.

Ferran Torres will go down in history as the decisive goalscorer in the second World Cup won by the Spanish national team in its entire history. In extra time, the Valencian from Barça shot down Dibu Martínez, who had made several saves, to unleash a delirium that will last for years. Here are some immediate thoughts.

The eve of the 2010 World Cup final, hundreds of thousands of Catalans demonstrated on Passeig de Gràcia against the ruling that the Constitutional Court had just issued on the Statute. The front pages of that Sunday were quite graphic: a huge Catalan protest and, next to it, a huge Spanish hope, due in large part to the talent of players made at Barça.Sixteen years later, history has repeated itself with a reheated flavor: the Spanish justice's indifference to the ECJ's ruling on the amnesty, and the news that the Spanish government invested more than double last year in Madrid (20.9%) than in Catalonia (8.6%) have arrived at the same moment that newspapers around the world were explaining on their front pages the story of two players made at La Masia who have become World Cup icons, with the Spanish team a stone's throw from glory.In terms of political and economic power, then, we are where we were, even though we tried to make an impressive solo escape. The same can be said of Spain, which is where it was, going its own way, mistress of the ball, which combines two games: either repression or stick and carrot, both with a similar result: despite rubbing against 20% of Spanish GDP with one hand tied behind its back, which is a remarkable feat, the stagnation of Catalans is a fact.Repression or the stick and carrot are taken for granted. The variable that must change so that when another World Cup arrives we don't have to repeat headlines is knowing how to convert our proven capacity in so many areas into a strategy for political power, and the first step should be a concertation of interests that makes it more difficult for the owners of the ball.

Rivers of ink have flowed these days over a photograph that came to light two summers ago, on the occasion of the fascinating emergence, at just 16 years old, of Lamine Yamal in a major international tournament: a European Championship that the Spanish team ended up winning in England. The current impact, on the eve of a World Cup final, surpasses the initial one. In fact, there are even skeptics who suggest, in the midst of the explosion of artificial intelligence, that the image in question is a fake.

A new era has begun in world football. Spain sewed the second star as world champion onto their jersey after defeating an Argentina in extra time, who had run out of miracles in the semifinals. The final of a strange and exciting World Cup was always played according to what Spain wanted, turning everything around the ball, attacking with ambition. Glory is theirs after a final in which Messi, very disconnected from the game, ceded the crown to Lamine Yamal. An era ends and a new one begins, personified in the young man from Rocafonda. One man alone cannot win World Cups, but a team can. And Luis de la Fuente's team, a coach until recently unknown, is a block that defends a style. An idea in which the collective rules, even though a lack of accuracy prolonged the agony until extra time. A final decided thanks to an unexpected hero, the Valencian Ferran Torres, who caught a ball inside the area. If in 2010 Spain won their first World Cup with a goal from Iniesta in the 116th minute, on this occasion the goal arrived in the 106th thanks, once again, to a Barça player.

Every World Cup leaves a handful of images destined to become icons. The hand of God by Maradona, Pelé lifting the World Cup or Lionel Messi celebrating his first world title wearing a bisht, the black and gold robe they placed on him before lifting the trophy in Qatar 2022. But if there is one photograph that has marked the prelude and a large part of the narrative of the 2026 World Cup, it is a very different one: a twenty-year-old Messi bathing a baby who, almost two decades later, has become his rival in a World Cup final. That baby was Lamine Yamal.

"It was like a school: the kids in front and the kids behind. He sat in the front row", recalled Luis de la Fuente a few weeks ago in an interview with the newspaper The Guardian. He was talking about Lionel Scaloni. They met in 2017 as professor and student of the Spanish federation's coaching courses for former elite players and will meet again this Sunday in the World Cup final. The Spanish national team, current European champions, and the Argentine national team, current world and South American champions, will fight for a historic title. It will be an exciting double duel, between Leo Messi and Lamine Yamal on the pitch and between De la Fuente and Scaloni on the bench.

"It's the most coveted jersey of the World Cup, without a doubt," states Karolina, an employee at the Adidas Store on Passeig de Gràcia. As we discuss the phenomenon behind this World Cup's most viral jersey, five people approach the shelf where the last few sizes of the Spanish national team's second kit are hanging, almost at the same time. Only a few large and extra-large sizes remain. "At first, only tourists were buying it, but as the tournament has progressed, many national buyers have also come. People associate it with a winning team," she explains. She adds that almost everyone is looking for the same jersey numbers: "Lamine Yamal, Pedri, and Cucurella."

If Barcelona did not install a giant screen, the surrounding municipalities did. Badalona, for example. While the mayor, Xavier García Albiol, followed the World Cup from New York, Plaça President Tarradellas became the meeting point for thousands of fans ready to push the Spanish team towards a new final.

Tomorrow at 9 the Spain-France game will be played, and banal Spanish nationalism is infiltrating everywhere, including the mobile screens of Movistar customers, which, instead of saying “Movistar” says “with the selection”, regardless of whether the client completely ignores it of the World Cup or the selection bothers them. The performance that states and companies derive from their sports selections explains to what extent sport is also politics and identity is also business. A cruel paradox for so many Catalans who have at some point shouted "neither Spain, nor France, Catalan Countries", and it turns out that tomorrow, it will be one or the other. About M. Rajoy and his comment that France plays without French saying that: first, following their reasoning, Spain plays without Spaniards, and second, that Republican France has felt very offended, but it would be good for them to consider whether the indignation they feel about the racist comment is consistent with the absence of racism in everyday life. Contrary to what this article says, it is not that people like Rajoy bring the World Cup into the realm of identity, but rather that the entire World Cup is a competition of identities (one only needs to look at the anthems, the flags, and the heads of state in the stands). Another matter is what is understood by national identity in each country. But this week there is another important appointment, which is on Thursday, the day on which the Court of Justice of the European Union must rule on the amnesty, specifically on whether the crime of embezzlement is amnestible or not. It is another episode in this judicial quarrel that the Spanish judiciary's refusal to apply the amnesty law as approved by the legislative power more than two years ago, in May 2024, has become. Remember that, to prevent its application, the Supreme Court ruled that, since the referendum was paid for with public money, the leaders of the Process personally enriched themselves because they saved themselves from putting money from their own pockets, like someone who pays for their daughter's wedding with public money (the example is from the Supreme Court). Well, on Thursday the CJEU will rule, but even if the ruling says that the amnesty is in accordance with European law, it will not be automatically applied, but rather then, the Constitutional Court must decide whether the Supreme Court's interpretation is correct or not, presumably it will say no, but this ruling will not arrive until the autumn, practically when Carles Puigdemont, Toni Comín and Lluís Puig will have been in exile for 9 years.  

Argentina will play the World Cup semi-finals thanks to Julián Álvarez. He hadn't scored in the entire tournament and was dealing with some murmurs about his rather mediocre performance, but he showed up at the best moment to save his team in another match decided by delirium (3-1). Sought after by big European clubs like Barça, the Atlético de Madrid forward invented a championship goal to unbalance a match that was heading for penalties. A rocket into the top corner from a brave Swiss team to meet England's Kane and Bellingham in the semis this Wednesday.

Hours before the initial whistle, in the streets of L'Hospitalet de Llobregat there was no room for doubt regarding the World Cup quarter-final duel between France and Morocco. Minute by minute, the red jerseys of the Atlas Lions colored the neighborhoods of Florida and Torrassa, where Hakimi and Brahim Díaz competed to occupy the backs of the youngest, who imitated their idols with a ball at their feet. Among all these jerseys, some from the Spanish national team with the name of Lamine Yamal, also of Moroccan origin, also stood out.

No surprises in Boston. The French team will play in the semifinals of this World Cup and is already awaiting the rival from the match between Spain and Belgium today. Didier Deschamps' team devoured Morocco, which had performed very well throughout the championship, with a voracity proportional to the talent it possesses and the importance of the occasion. The superiority displayed by the Gauls is comparable to that of Brazil, thanks to an imagination that has been lost. The multicultural breeding ground of 21st-century France is the favorite to lift the World Cup.

The Spanish team has lived up to expectations and has qualified for the round of 32 of the Football World Cup as group leaders. A lucky goal from Atlético player Álex Baena just before halftime was enough to defeat Uruguay in a very dull match between the two teams (0-1). By finishing in first place, the team avoids playing for a ticket to the round of 16 against Lionel Messi's Argentina. If they do their homework against weak Jordan, the reigning world champion will play the first knockout round against the Cape Verde team, which advances in its World Cup debut after drawing three matches out of three, the last one this morning against Saudi Arabia (0-0).

The fever for football shirts vintage grows without stopping. What was once worn only to cheer on your team on match days has become a staple on the streets and in wardrobes. More or less everyone knows someone very into football who has a collection of jerseys, and if not, they are probably themselves. This is how the story of Joel Jaggar began, a man from Nottingham who decided to trade the London rain for the Barcelona sun and the radio for selling football jerseys vintage. “After ten years in London, I felt I needed a change of scenery: I wanted to live somewhere else, learn another culture and a new language,” Joel explains to ARA. “I was juggling jobs between the two cities, but I soon saw the opportunity. In England, the football jersey market is incredibly active and I was already a collector,” he adds.

Every World Cup leaves a recurring image: a coach on the pitch, surrounded by his players, who seems to have reached the end of a journey taken over years. Meanwhile, out of focus, the rest of the football world tries to find the explanations, the keys, or the recipe that allows a team to lift the World Cup. What are the ingredients to win the top football competition? This question fuels a good part of the debates in these weeks. Will a younger, innovative coach, like Julian Nagelsmann (38 years old, Germany), prevail? Or will it be a more veteran coach? The most veteran of all, Dick Advocaat, 78, can no longer, because Curaçao has been eliminated.

It has caused some scandal that Sabadell goalkeeper Diego Fuoli celebrated his team's promotion to the Second Division by singing, from the balcony of Sabadell City Hall, an insulting chant against Pedro Sánchez, chanted by some of the supporters in the square. The controversy is not fully understood: Fuoli and the singing fans were in the typical atmosphere so characteristic of football: celebration, relaxation, communion, healthy camaraderie, team spirit, shared enthusiasm, and a little – nothing, barely a spark – of spirits, narcotics, and testosterone. All without malice, naturally, because football does not understand politics. Football, as is well known, is the most important of unimportant things (a big smile on the face of whoever repeats this cliché).Fuoli's songs –which, curiously, are those of the Spanish right and far-right, but this is also a coincidence– are perfectly consistent with the general tone of most non-strictly sports news coming from football, and, what's more, in all its categories. From parents who encourage their children to kill the opponent or assault the referee (or who boastmastegots with other parents) in school or children's tournaments to players, fans, and management of high-level competitions who display unacceptable behavior both on and off the field, the parade of role models for young people is constant. Examples: Raúl Asencio (Real Madrid, prosecuted for two counts of invasion of privacy), Álvaro Aguado (exRCD Espanyol, processed for sexual assault), Santi Mina (ex Valencia CF, convicted of sexual abuse), Dani Alves (ex-Barça, for rape: convicted, imprisoned and finally acquitted). The list of rapists and sexual aggressors in the world of football could fill the length of a handful of articles like this one. The list of tax evasions and fraud would fill the entire newspaper. Alves, by the way, once out of prison has become an evangelical preacher, an honest way to spread the divine word. Messi visited Trump last March and they took some photos, both smiling. In Paris, the celebration of PSG's Champions League ended in street chaos, three deaths and nearly 800 arrests. FIFA and its president Gianni Infantino's complicity with totalitarian regimes, petrodictatorships, and – once again – Trump is blatant to the point of obscenity. These are the kind of news usually related to football (not to other sports, or not as much), often dismissed with a few jokes and some routine comments.We are all grown up and rather difficult to shock, and for that very reason, since the daily and obsessive nagging about football must be inevitable (due to the masses of money and people it moves, not the interest of the game itself), let's at least save ourselves the exclamations every time a footballer, a fan, or a director goes off the rails or directly commits a crime. Football is like that, indeed.

Once upon a time, footballers seemed to have only one dimension: when they weren't sweating it out on the field, they were always seen in tracksuits. People programmed solely to perform athletically, as if there were no boundary between athlete and person. And when they appeared in street clothes, they conveyed the same discomfort as men who only dress up for weddings: outfits that seemed to wear them rather than the other way around. Times that, seeing the national teams' arrivals at the World Cup, seem absolutely past. But this transformation has taken several World Cups to crystallize.