In some of the happiest moments of the games in San Mamés, the stands sing a celebratory song whose only stanza reads “Athletic gu gara” (in Spanish, “we are Athletic”). It is a community song, a simple and direct verse, which reminds us that those of us who are supporting the team at that moment form a well-defined we.
Regarding the fan, that is the great power of football, the ability of this spectacle to generate community. In a century, the 20th, that was increasingly individualistic, in which collective identities were under suspicion, football occupied the space that was previously reserved for the homeland, the region, the clan, the religion or the social class. Let us remember that the two most important meanings of “club” are precisely a society of common interest and a physical place in which to meet.
In the poster made for the club’s 125th anniversary, Athletic decided to include in the background, behind the first team players, images of the faces of different women who had played a relevant role in the club’s history. They weren’t just players. Among legends of red-and-white women’s soccer was the one who was president of the entity (Ana Urquijo), a journalist (Sara Estévez, who signed the first chronicles of her under the transvestite pseudonym of Maratón) and a partner. The latter is Miren Edurne Salsamendi, who at the time launched a campaign to demand the right of women to be members of the club and not just subscribers.
That anniversary poster had a dedication. It said: “To all the women who since 1898 have made Athletic Club better.” The phrase sought to highlight the relevant role that women have had in the entity since the beginning, not only in the last two decades, which is since when the women’s team has existed.
Because, how far did this we of the football communities reach until very recently? Was it a neutral or masculine we?
After 14 years at the club, this week Garazi Murua, Athletic’s central defender and emblem of the entity, said he was leaving football. She announced it with a video in which she herself reads a text. Unlike the classic sentimental farewell video, Garazi’s is a perfect summary of what has been his career and his struggle, which has never been limited only to the playing field. Her career could well be summarized in that cry from children’s games: “For me and for all my classmates.”
It is a fact that women have had to earn every square centimeter that lives in the world of football today. Centimeters that, it is worth remembering, she is still forced to defend every day. Although there are personal references in Garazi’s video, of course there aren’t any, there is no trace of individual regrets, nor egotistical tears, because she is and knows herself to be a representative of many others. In fact, the video ends with Garazi smiling and handing his boots to a young player from Bizkerre, the club where she trained, while she says: “Believe in your dreams, be ungovernable. Boots are not hung, they are bequeathed.”
Garazi is known by his locker room companions, his colleagues, as Gara. It’s a contraction of her name, but gara In Basque it is also the conjugation of the present indicative of the first person plural of the verb to be. Gara is we are. What a beautiful coincidence, because she perfectly represents the profile of the player who has led the club to success in its history: that of the person who knows that he is part of a whole and understands commitment to others and teamwork as maximum values that can be aspired to.
On June 16, Athletic Women says goodbye to the season in San Mamés. It will be Garazi’s last game. When the fans sing “Athletic gu gara“, some of us will put, for this time, commas to the phrase and we will sing: “Athletic, gu, Gara” (“Athletic, us, Gara”). It will be our tribute to those who have done the best and greatest we that we celebrate every Sunday.
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