The curse of Spain

Spain is to football, what South Africa is to Cricket. The ultimate team on paper, but the CHOKERs. Even though I am no man to pass a judgement, there are shady glimpses of match-fixing in South Africa s past and present. Without a great fan following and ad market like Asia, South Africa will do no good to the sponsors by winning a trophy. But the players can always win by throwing matches.

But this is not the same with Spain. It has a football crazy population, s atrong league; and football is also used to express regional feelings. FC Barcelona, one of the most strong and famous footballing clubs, were primarily formed to express the Catalan feelings which were suppressed by the tyrannical regime of Spain. Real Madrid is the club with the richest history and the most cups. Yet collectively Spain fails in all major tournaments - expect last Euro cup.

It again has repeated in this Confederatiosn cup. It took only USA, who miraculoulsy reached the semi to kick out the 'La Furia Roja'. Many a world cup and Euro, Spain was always tipped to win the cup, but always found to lose their the way, in the fight to reach the last eight.
It may be a psycological barrier or over confidence - with a line up of Torres, Villa, Xavi, Alonso, Fabregas, Puyol, Pique and Casilas; how can any USA team beat them ? But failing to understand ' You have to play to WIN' ; Turing up on the pitch does not guarantee a win; the same lesson Champions League final taught.

But is the curse more deep rooted - a curse of Football itself ; Even though many countries try to own up origin of football - many factors point to an origin to Americas; in the tribes of Mayas and Aztecs(near modern Mexico) . No offence to Chinese and Japanese; who also seem to have an early form of football. But the presence of rubber balls and strong written information about early football makes Americas seem a contender for the birthright. But this history takes a tragic turn when Spainish landed in Americas. Rubber was a new commodity to them at that time. During the reign of King Charles V of Spain, teams from Americas were taken to perform before his court. But the ultra-religious Spainsh found the bounce of ball and rhythm of the game as handicraft of Devil. They cruelly suppressed the game in Americas. Their cruelty and also the diseases they introduced ultimately wiped out a major chunk of these cultures and also did much damage to the 'BALL GAME'. Is football taking its revenge on Spain ?