Is the pain in Spain over?

It is all too easy to be in fashion, receive support from the masses and jump on a bandwagon. Difficult it is to find a football-infused culture as well in Australia when newspaper coverage in mainstream media include World Cup specials with columns and two page-spreads stating only the obvious or match reports. They are not in-depth reports; it shows the lack of knowledge from anybody about the game. There have been four pages at most and then? Move over, it's back to the local codes.

With a month only where the game truly reaches mass appeal, SBS provides quality broadcasting of it all to Australians. It is a month where the attention lies on the game, who will win and also, the affinities with the local national team whom did not perform and repeat their feats four years ago in Germany. Why? Simple answers may spread to the insufficient lack of quality players in the team and that is far too easy to claim as an answer.

A society boasting of citizens as migrants from across all generations, as multi-cultural as what Australia contains should expect much more when it comes to football. Results should not enhance the determination, the approach to a game. If one is to see what Argentina for example has done with its National team upon arrival to its international airport at Ezeiza in Buenos Aires, one would easy think they were Spain, the victors in South Africa.

Results come from knowing confidently that a squad with luck also in favour as well has worked hard. It does not come on the other hand to a matter of days, weeks or months, money on the other hand either yet self-belief, attitude, attitude and ethic. Teams need to gel from all the circumstances given. Working with players from a young age in development without the lingering bureaucracy are the paths to fulfill. Why is it that Australian football needs such marketing to get results when it comes from within?

It is about focusing and encompassing a realistic approach in knowing that the target is not as hard as it seems. Audiences are global and reach even billions so the exposure is not only mind-blowing but limitless. Perhaps looking at the nations that have won World Cups, they are not only football-clad societies however they boasts communities from local level that assist with children in difficulties and provide sport, football as an option.

There are societies like Spain that do not have to deal with cultural barriers so much apart from the obvious when there are migrants and the differences are evident hence the initial reactions that can be hostile due to the unknown, to uncertainty.

A lack of knowledge provides a lack of confidence. It is about submerging onto the pool and the array at hand. Diversity is within the grasps of those able to pick-point, approach, educate, inform and nurture. It is an investment of time, knowledge, not money. That surely is the answer to Australian football through all its ranks.

Looking at newly-crowned world champions, Spain: there were issues of a Civil war, a military dictatorship followed by decades of oppression right into the 1970s. Their film industry, their unique music too and the arts in general have grown ever since its demise and fall. Democracy came in to provide opportunities in equality and growth for the middle, working class and immigrants sprung from Morocco, across Latin America, far-east Asia even the Caribbean and of course, the rest of Europe, mainly Eastern Europe as well. Regional issues remain to this day a constant platter on people to debate about. They have dialects and lingüistic barriers as well. They were affected by terrorism in 2004 with the Madrid bombing whilst ETA continues its network of threats, destruction and criminal activity across not only the Basque region but across the nation and even spilling onto other borders.

Has it affected football? Of course it has. Players in La Liga come from afar as Cameroon and many other African representatives, from Uruguay to Colombia, across Europe and including all the amount of local players whom continue to provide stiff competition for places in professional first and second division clubs. The Spanish monarchy continues its role surging other fellow sympathetic, active media firms and other authoritative entities to criticize one-sidedly. Marca and Diario AS are two of many other perpetrators that will endlessly insist in insinuating and signalling a past on Franco's regime as a benefit to the nation along with everything else in between. Using Real Madrid in the capital as a gateway to showcase its power is gutless, wayward. not only political and monopolizing however a sign of showing the importance the game dictates to a society. That’s just in the capital. There exists a similar foray in Seville, Zaragoza, in Barcelona with cross-town club Espanyol, across the coast, up north where clubs need to battle between salvaging their pride, the role as regional community front-runners or the axe. The monopoly amongst the big clubs, particular the big two, free of doubt as well is evident how much the internal affairs and politics mix in with football.

What has happened over the last two to three decades in the Catalan seaside city of Barcelona? The second-biggest urbanisation in the country, a former Olympic host city and within its football ranks, their most easily identified team. FC Barcelona, the club that prides itself as "more than a club" opened its doors in the seventies to players for example from the Netherlands, Argentina, England to mention a few and whilst Brazil, Peru, the former Yugoslavia and Bulgaria also to name just a couple more provided clear and evident results on the football field breaking the barriers of bureaucracy, that indeed playing the game can provide no platform for discrimination, no reason to leave anybody behind like a second-class citizen. Their playing style varied. The crowd roared. The excitement built and its fans showed exemplary conduct by not just idolizing players but rather thanking them whenever greeting them on the streets. Whilst Johan Cruyff introduced his Dutch-style of total football to the club where every player needed to strengthen its game and become an all-rounder, many other clubs at first frowned, laughed, ridiculed them and with the years after failing, losing, battling and continually trying to find their own answers, followed suit.

Now it has gone to the point where past managers, the most recent in Frank Rijkaard, a Dutchman who parted ways with the club giving up his tenure to make way from home-grown Pep Guardiola. The former player, captain and now the pioneer coach who brought and gave the opportunity to world stars like Argentinean Lionel Messi and the hero of it all in the final, Andrés Iniesta.

For those who know and understand the game, they will know that coaches when given the boot are later forgotten. It is a cruelty that football can include. Guardiola himself found trouble with the Arbitration of Sport, years trying to clear his name with doping scandals and whilst that was a constant battle, he proved not only those close him, himself most importantly but to everybody that his attitude and his love of the game, ultimately his professionalism was transparent. The philosophy he was brought up from the academy at the sporting grounds of FC Barcelona remains intact, calling it integrity. The results are evidently what dictate the direction of a club through competition points, standing between winning, losing, success and failure however not the main objective.

The hypocrisy and contradiction to it all is that now that the Spanish defeated the Netherlands in South Africa's World Cup final and the tables have turned upside-down. Many of the Spanish jump on the victory bandwagon and claim the victory as theirs. Surely, as easy as it may get to claim Spanish heritage blood on your family tree, knowing football is a completely different ball game. Those eleven on the pitch were born and bred across the Iberian peninsula but the philosophy behind many of the working-class oriented families that insisted on a future through football, provided a parenthood of love, support and worked endless through clubs that had to endure fascism in its day, endure the mass support of the people who felt identified, the masses in this case saw a way of uprising and a sense of belonging with an institution. This was the way to show not only an option in education but to provide an exemplary image withstanding whatever the difficulty occurring which has today bared the fruit, paid the price and the made the difference.

Individualism came along. Andrés Iniesta scored when it counted. Years of up to twenty years, decades of development to come into play. Of attempting, trying to win games, of implementing a varied system of play in training sessions, of saving up money, catching transport, sleeping well, combining discipline with school work, enduring temptation of fans especially those of the opposite sex, the transition from adolescence to adulthood are just factors that deserve mentioning. Individualism came along when throughout the tournament, the safe and confident hands of Iker Casillas provided security in the back line under the goalposts for a custodian that has earned his captaincy going through criticism from the media and his character, his leadership skills in doubt. Individualism provided Arsenal’s midfield maestro Cesc Fábregas to sting another lethal weapon of mobility down the centre-half onto both the left and right where possible. Another sign in the development of goalkeepers in the country is how Casillas now well over his 30s can look back and not only look back at the titles he has won with a club he never thought he would completely his career with. He is not the only one who can do the job. The other two reserves are not only alternative, Pepe Reina who has the reigns in goal for Liverpool and FC Barcelona’s Victor Valdés. Those who missed out simply did not make the trip to South Africa because of the numbers FIFA demand, not because of incompetence.

Until the day of regional resistance coming through and the monarchy gives in regardless of situation to open-up autonomy and sovereign independence to the Estatut of Catalunya, Galicia, the Basque region or the Valencian community, time and perseverance has shown to be the victor. Whilst that does not happen neither will the football federations of these mentioned regions seek affiliation with the world governing body, with FIFA. They continue however to provide a role in the development in the game, note that the current coach for Catalunya is Johan Cruyff, the man himself the instigator behind the changing face in approach of the game in Spain.

Acknowledging that the victories over Chile in group stage were undeserved because they were not the superior team, to remain patient and observant after losing their first opening match to fellow European qualifier Switzerland, to just scraping past the Paraguayans are testament to his understanding and knowledge, temperance and collective character. There was barely ever a smile in his face until the final whistle after extra-time in the final. He mentioned nothing about the referees, no complaining at all. He knew like Carles Puyol and a few others in his team across the tournament should have got sent-off. He knows a referee is there to do his job whether others like it or not. He is also aware that the lack of variation in their game will be nullified in future tournaments as the ever-changing state of the game being played requires an update, a consistency in training to find new methodologies, styles and approaches to playing and winning. This is called vision and wisdom in seeing how the game is played, what football endeavours.

A mentality grew. A passing style of game developed. A likening with the masses also, the marketing strategies cashed up with six-figure sums and with the media too not to mention. Whilst every backbone to a team need to have a vital goalkeeper, defender, midfielder and forward; the credit given to FC Barcelona can be done without even mentioning. Again, it takes those who know the game to pick-point it because those left aside in its path are not only unsung collaborators of it all but will be given its hard-earned credit sooner or later. No mentioning of Carles Rexach, to Iñaki Sáez, Lorenç Serra Ferrer, Arsenio Iglesias and Javier Irureta for example who tirelessly work with the youth. To the Dutch involved in the many clubs.

The contribution of Argentinean coaches to the professional clubs across the country. To those in junior, youth and reserve teams as well. Vicente del Bosque was critical of taking up a side that only played one style, with a lack of variation.

The victory made way for the Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero to claim it as a "boost of confidence" to its ailing state of the economy. For the royal monarchs to greet the players and be likened once more in front of a whole nation when current issue undermine the truth of what really is occurring behind the nation. For the coach, Del Bosque showed honesty and modesty in recognising that the fortune of winning games and the streak of it is a sign of growth in unity and camaraderie when the divisions in the Spanish national side will forever remain. Winning a World Cup title is memorable, significant, even once-in-a-lifetime and not won by simply scoring goals.