The Euro Cup that Spain has had has been so, so good that this Sunday almost nine out of ten Spaniards – 87% – will sit in front of the television to watch the final against England (21.00, La1), according to a survey by the 40dB Institute for EL PAÍS and Cadena SER. The match has become a historic event that has aroused majority social support among men and women after the team sealed a formidable path – six victories in six games with an attractive and brave proposal – until the final clash this Sunday with which it has hooked the country again. An example: 89.9% of people have felt joy, pride, excitement or euphoria for the performance of the Roja. Another: eight out of ten Spaniards believe that the multiculturalism of society has made the team led by Luis de la Fuente better. It is telling that the two favourite players of the fans are Lamine Yamal and Nico Williams, the two starting wingers, two dark-skinned young men – one is still a teenager who turned 17 on Saturday – whose families emigrated to Spain in search of a better future. These are the main conclusions of the survey, carried out last Thursday with 500 interviews. on-line.
The multiculturalism of society has made the national team better
80.5% of Spaniards agree that the multiculturalism of Spanish society has made the team led by Luis de la Fuente better, according to the survey.
Two of their stars, Lamine Yamal and Nico Williams (22 years old), come from families who moved to Spain to try to escape poverty. The Barça winger grew up in Rocafonda, a working-class and humble neighbourhood of Mataró (Barcelona) with a large immigrant community. His father, Mounir Nasraoui, was born in Morocco, and his mother, Sheila Ebana, is originally from Equatorial Guinea. Nico’s parents, who was born in Pamplona in 2002, came to the Peninsula from Ghana. The fact that there are two starting players in the national team who are children of immigrants – which also happens in other national teams – is only a reflection of Spanish society: more than 5.5 million foreigners live in the country, according to data from the National Institute of Statistics (INE).
The connection that La Roja has created is also evident in other data from the survey. 76.4% of Spaniards say they identify with the team, and 71.3% say that the game and its successes have helped unite us as a country. This is part of the power of football, a sport that sometimes becomes a unifying element that transcends ideologies and social classes. There is even 63.1% who say they identify more with the national team than with their club.
A date for men and women
That the match against England is a historic and socially transversal event is evident in the survey data. Not only is it that almost nine out of ten Spaniards (87%) are going to watch the final, but this is a significantly higher percentage than those who watch football regularly (67.6%).
The expectation for the match, in which Spain could become the first team to win four European Cups, has caught the attention of men in particular, but it is also high among women. 75.9% of men say they will watch the match, while 60.2% of women will do so, a difference of 15.7 points. However, only 24.8% of women watch football frequently (56.3% of men). In other words, there is a large percentage of the female population in Spain that does not normally follow this sport and will not miss the final tonight.
Lamine, the Spaniards’ favourite player, followed by Nico and Carvajal
Lamine Yamal, a 17-year-old boy who still uses bracesis the favourite player of the Spanish. 46% of them choose him as their favourite footballer, far ahead of Nico Williams (23.7%) and Dani Carvajal (14.9%).
The Barcelona winger, who has just finished secondary school and attends extracurricular English classes, scored one of the best goals of the Euros in the semi-final against France: he beat Rabiot with a change of direction some 27 metres from Maignan’s goal, won enough space and placed the ball in the right corner of France with a formidable left-footed shot. It was the equaliser – his first goal in a Euro – and with which he became the youngest player to score in a major international tournament. Before making his debut against the team led by Mbappé, Lamine had already left a collection of fantastic technical details: fabulous controls to shake off opponents, astonishing ease in one-on-one situations and three goal assists (against Croatia, Georgia and Germany).
Another player who has emerged from the Euros stronger than ever is Luis de la Fuente, the national coach. 85.6% of Spaniards value his work at the head of the team, and only 2.4% rate it as bad or very bad, according to the survey.
The Riojan coach has been able to exceed the expectations that existed around La Roja. He has managed to get a team that was not among the three big favourites to win the title to the final with a full house of victories, but above all he has managed to get Spain to display the best football in the tournament after a few years in which the famous tiki-taka. De la Fuente, always with a discreet and conciliatory profile, has maintained that fondness for the ball, but has enriched the Roja with other registers, especially with the verticality of Nico and Lamine, two wingers capable of knocking down any defense with their speed and their one-on-one skills.
It is the favorite team of 19% of people, but the vast majority still prefer the one that won the World Cup
The enthusiasm that the final and the game of La Roja have aroused has led to 19.2% of people choosing this Spanish team as their favourite, according to the survey. The percentage of baby boomers The majority of the Spanish national team (the generation created in Spain by the 650,000 births each year between the late 1950s and 1970s) prefer this team at 27.5%. However, the favourite Spain of the vast majority (42.2%) is the one that triumphed in the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. The team managed by Luis de la Fuente, according to the survey, is more popular than the one that won the Euro 2008 under Luis Aragonés (10.9%) and the one that won the 2012 with Vicente del Bosque in charge (13.5%).
The selection inspires more pride and excitement among women than among men
Spain’s approach and style of play have captivated so much that almost 90% of Spaniards say that the national team has generated positive feelings in them. 58.7% of the population have felt joy; 53.9% have felt pride; and 43% have felt excitement. Pride is more prevalent among women (59.3%) than among men (48.2%), as is excitement (45.8% versus 40%).
Only one in ten respondents said that La Roja had bored them (6.4%), caused them disdain (2.9%), frustration (1.2%) or anger (0.8%). There was also 13.5% who felt indifferent and 4.5% who felt nostalgic for the Spanish team. In other words, the national team is currently generating a great consensus in Spanish society, which in other areas, such as politics, has suffered from a very high level of tension in recent years. For example, the first survey by the Centre for Sociological Research (CIS) on democratic habits – published last January – showed that citizens were fed up with the rows in Congress and were demanding agreements on important issues (almost 90% of the population wanted them). In this situation, La Roja is a team that is generating very broad social acceptance.
Almost all of us will gather to enjoy the final, but three times as many men as women will watch it alone
The way in which Spaniards will watch the final against England on Sunday has its nuances. The vast majority will do so as a social plan: they will enjoy the match either with more people in their own home or at the home of an acquaintance (63.2%), or in a bar with friends (13.9%). The first idea is the one that women like the most: 71.3% of them will be with more people in a flat for the Spain-England game. However, almost one in five men (19.1%) will watch the match alone (among them it drops to 6.5%), without the presence of anyone else, according to the survey.
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