I admit that I am an atypical Spaniard, especially because I am not attracted to football, which is the sport that arouses the most passion in my country.<\/p>\n
Tonight, the national teams of Spain and Argentina will play the final of the 2026 World Cup.<\/strong> Argentina has already won three World Cups, Spain only one. The statistics are against us, and from what I understand (I'm a layman in these matters), Argentina has a very good team. Whatever the result, the winner will be a Hispanic country<\/strong>, and that, as a Spaniard, fills me with pride. With all due respect to every other country, I can proudly say that Spain is the cradle of a cultural community of 520 million people who have Spanish as their mother tongue.<\/strong> Among them are 46 million Argentinians.<\/p>\n One of the reasons I haven't been drawn to football for many years is the enormous amount of base passions surrounding each match<\/strong>. These base passions drive some people to insult millions of people they don't know, including many good people, simply for having a certain nationality. In the last few hours, I've seen comments from Spaniards and Argentinians that make me cringe.<\/strong> All of these comments were motivated by this final, that is, by a football match. I find it completely absurd.<\/strong> In both Spain and Argentina, there are many good people, as well as average and bad people, just like in any other country. Generalizing is very unfair.<\/strong><\/p>\n These attitudes cause me particular shame among my fellow countrymen. It seems we have very short memories. In 1946, when the UN imposed international isolation on Spain<\/strong> \u2014using the excuse of Franco's dictatorship, a purely hypocritical argument, considering that one of the regimes that supported this measure was Stalin's monstrous communist dictatorship, one of the greatest mass murderers of the 20th century\u2014 only six countries sided with Spain. All six were Hispanic countries, and one of them was Argentina.<\/strong> The aid from Argentina alleviated the great hardships that millions of Spaniards endured in the following years.<\/p>\n