Jairo Mejía Ramos
Atlanta (USA), June 15 (EFE).- The famous southern hospitality of the United States received Spain this Monday in its World Cup debut in a Mercedes-Benz stadium in Atlanta (Georgia) dyed red, but which left La Roja fans with a taste of defeat after the goalless draw against Cape Verde.
With more than 70,000 seats full, the iced tea and fried food kiosks and opportunistic evangelical preachers took advantage of the crowd to give a southern flavor to the first of the two games that Spain will play at this World Cup venue.
With a perfect temperature in a conditioned stadium, the stands stopped entertaining themselves by waving when Spanish coach Luis de la Fuente gave minutes in the second half to Lamine Yamal and Nico Williams.
In the end it was those from Cape Verde, number 67 in the FIFA world ranking, who celebrated a goalless draw as if it were a victory and gave a colorful note with dancing and being the last to leave the stadium.
“Spain here plays at home. There are gringos who come with the Spanish shirt and the Latinos all wear the Red one,” Jorge, one of the local volunteers who helps organize the event, explains to EFE.
“In this World Cup I’m going with the US and with Spain,” explains Atib, who like many others came to Atlanta from other parts of the country just to watch the game and return to work tomorrow, without luggage and only equipped with the colors of Spain.
“My wife saw what I was suffering and told me I had to come,” he says.
“It hasn’t been cheap and a bit of a disappointment, but I don’t regret it, I hope it’s the first game towards the final,” explains the American.
Sports diplomacy
Spain, favorite to win the World Cup, has established its headquarters in Chattanooga (Tennessee) about two hours from Atlanta, in the heart of a United States accustomed to warmth and that has supported Spain since its arrival.
Spain has taken advantage of this reception to make use of sports diplomacy, the great bridge that unites it to a country obsessed with sports, where each bar or restaurant has a wall of televisions broadcasting from the World Cup to pickelball.
The mayor of the city, Democrat Andre Dickens, today opened a forum on sports and business of the Spain-United States Chamber of Commerce in which he assured that it is an “honor to welcome Spain and serve as support to strengthen ties with you.”
“Spain plays twice in our city and the Falcons (the NFL team that has its home in Mercedes-Benz Stadium) are going to Madrid at the end of the year,” he said.
The Spanish ambassador to the United States, Angeles Moreno, also present at the event, highlighted the economic power of sport in two powers in that area and recalled the bridge that soccer builds, based on values such as the inclusion of immigrants.
Maybe that is one of Spain’s goals in this first game in the United States: earning the shouts of a Syrian-American from Virginia like Atib or taking Eric to travel from Nashville (Tennessee) with a friend to show him that there is a sport here called ‘soccer’ and a country called Spain that knows how to play soccer. EFE
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