Pain in Spain for austerity may go away with their joy in South Africa for victory
Friday, 9 July 2010
Maswood Alam Khan
A child cries when he feels pain; his mother gives to her screaming child a toy to play with so that he stops crying forgetting his pains. When we the adults feel pain we also try to divert our mind from the area of pains to an area of pleasures. The best painkiller for everybody, the aged or the babies, is to immerse ourselves into a game or a passion or at least a sweet memory which disengages our mind from pent-up pains and opens up an escape valve to relish our blessings in the present or in the past.
The unemployment rate in Spain is already more than 20 per cent. Spain's credit rating has drastically been downgraded. The Spanish government has been compelled to announce tough austerity measures to bring its public debt and deficit into line.
But, whatever the pains or however tough budgetary constraints the Spaniards have to endure due to austerity measures taken to reduce their debt their screams of joys in the World Cup semifinal must have drowned out their groans of pain in their home economy.
Spaniards must now be in a state of euphoria with their players bracing themselves for a battle with the Dutch for snatching the FIFA World Cup for the first time in their football history.
And when the contagious debt disease is spreading all over Europe like a pandemic crisis a victory in FIFA World Cup 2010 for a European country, for Spain or for Holland, will also mollify pains of people of other debt-ridden countries like Greece and Portugal in spite of their own agonizing defeats in the same World Cup thinking that at least a neighbor of their continent is bringing the trophy home, a feeling that will assuage the Europeans' pains to a great extent.
Given their recent form and achievements in their games with other contenders of the World Cup Germany, being the three-time world champion, was poised at least to play in the final as they had plenty of strengths and resources to draw inspiration from. But the spectators of the world were awed as the gleaming Jabulani was headed into German goalpost by Spain's Carles Puyol from 10 yards from Xavi's corner kick sending Spain the reigning European champion into their first ever World Cup final.
To many of us Germany had an edge over Spain and it was a sheer surprise to see Spain defeating Germany. Spain picked up two stuttering victories over Paraguay and Portugal in the last two matches and the Spaniards could not yet show the kind of dominance that they displayed in Euro 2008.
Spain could never win World Cup. In fact, the Spaniards could never even win a World Cup semifinal in the history. Their best performance was winning the fourth place in the 1950 World Cup where the tournament was decided in a four-team final round competition based on round robin league system. With Spain entering the final it seems the uncrowned are going to be crowned in the global kingdom of football.
However, the reality is that Spain has been stronger than Germany in terms of squad strength. Though their recent form was not as strong as that of Germany, Spain has some of today's best players in the world including Xavi, Iniesta and David Villa. Spain midfield features so many quality players that it seems as if they could even feature two world-class midfield line ups at the same time.
Tear-washed smiles may be lit up glaringly in the faces of more than 46 million Spaniards and many more millions of the fans all over the world if Spain could bring the FIFA trophy home and help mollify the pains the Spaniards have to withstand until their debt level plummets to a tolerable level.
E-mail : maswood@hotmail.com
A child cries when he feels pain; his mother gives to her screaming child a toy to play with so that he stops crying forgetting his pains. When we the adults feel pain we also try to divert our mind from the area of pains to an area of pleasures. The best painkiller for everybody, the aged or the babies, is to immerse ourselves into a game or a passion or at least a sweet memory which disengages our mind from pent-up pains and opens up an escape valve to relish our blessings in the present or in the past.
The unemployment rate in Spain is already more than 20 per cent. Spain's credit rating has drastically been downgraded. The Spanish government has been compelled to announce tough austerity measures to bring its public debt and deficit into line.
But, whatever the pains or however tough budgetary constraints the Spaniards have to endure due to austerity measures taken to reduce their debt their screams of joys in the World Cup semifinal must have drowned out their groans of pain in their home economy.
Spaniards must now be in a state of euphoria with their players bracing themselves for a battle with the Dutch for snatching the FIFA World Cup for the first time in their football history.
And when the contagious debt disease is spreading all over Europe like a pandemic crisis a victory in FIFA World Cup 2010 for a European country, for Spain or for Holland, will also mollify pains of people of other debt-ridden countries like Greece and Portugal in spite of their own agonizing defeats in the same World Cup thinking that at least a neighbor of their continent is bringing the trophy home, a feeling that will assuage the Europeans' pains to a great extent.
Given their recent form and achievements in their games with other contenders of the World Cup Germany, being the three-time world champion, was poised at least to play in the final as they had plenty of strengths and resources to draw inspiration from. But the spectators of the world were awed as the gleaming Jabulani was headed into German goalpost by Spain's Carles Puyol from 10 yards from Xavi's corner kick sending Spain the reigning European champion into their first ever World Cup final.
To many of us Germany had an edge over Spain and it was a sheer surprise to see Spain defeating Germany. Spain picked up two stuttering victories over Paraguay and Portugal in the last two matches and the Spaniards could not yet show the kind of dominance that they displayed in Euro 2008.
Spain could never win World Cup. In fact, the Spaniards could never even win a World Cup semifinal in the history. Their best performance was winning the fourth place in the 1950 World Cup where the tournament was decided in a four-team final round competition based on round robin league system. With Spain entering the final it seems the uncrowned are going to be crowned in the global kingdom of football.
However, the reality is that Spain has been stronger than Germany in terms of squad strength. Though their recent form was not as strong as that of Germany, Spain has some of today's best players in the world including Xavi, Iniesta and David Villa. Spain midfield features so many quality players that it seems as if they could even feature two world-class midfield line ups at the same time.
Tear-washed smiles may be lit up glaringly in the faces of more than 46 million Spaniards and many more millions of the fans all over the world if Spain could bring the FIFA trophy home and help mollify the pains the Spaniards have to withstand until their debt level plummets to a tolerable level.
E-mail : maswood@hotmail.com