Football and National Identities in Spain ― The Strange Death of Don Quixote

Football is the most popular sport on earth, and a near-universal means of expressing collective identification. This book investigates the uses made of football to create, shape and foster national identities in Spain since the beginning of the twentieth century. Its focus is on the manner in which football reporting has been utilized to cultivate Spanish, Catalan and Basque national myths and stereotypes in different historical circumstances. Football and National Identities in Spain shows the changing and artificial nature of myths and exposes the often dark vested interests behind the propagation of national narratives through soccer. This book analyses Spanish, British, French, German and Italian media to tell the fascinating story of how the Spanish national team went from perennial underachiever to one of the most lauded in the history of the game and the profound implications this transformation had for the national and international image of Spain.

Alejandro Quiroga is Reader in Spanish History at Newcastle University, UK. He is the author of Making Spaniards: Primo de Rivera and the Nationalization of the Masses, 1923-1930 and The Reinvention of Spain: Nation and Identity since Democracy (with Sebastian Balfour).