How the Basque Country used football to show solidarity with Palestine
The Basque Country beat Palestine 3-0 in a friendly match in support of the people of the oppressed nation.
“It’s beautiful.” Those were the carefully selected words of a young girl, no older than six or seven, as they turned onto Calle Licenciado Poza, the famous street upon which the stadium they call ‘the cathedral’ in Spain forces open your jaw as it commands the horizon. They were right, the stadium is beautiful, with the seats regularly a roaring mass of red and white, but not tonight. Tonight they were green.
The support for Palestine in the Basque Country - the northern region of Spain where it rains more than it shines and the rolling hills look more like Ireland than an American postcard depicting the Emerald Isle - is deep-rooted and obvious as soon as you step out of Abando station. In this region, flags of the middle-eastern nation are wrapped around balconies as much as the red and white stripes of Athletic, and showing support for the cause is simply an accepted part of one’s daily life.
Ahead of kick-off inside the stadium lit up in the shared colours of the two flags, the traumatised face of the screaming woman from Picasso’s Guernica painting was spread across the centre circle. The 3.5 metre canvas on display in Madrid’s Reina Sofía museum is a depiction of the horror in the northern Basque village of the same name, as General Franco gave Adolf Hitler total liberty to test his war tactics on the innocent civilians. The woman in the painting cries for help that is never arriving as her house burns around her, so terrorised are the people. It was painted as a message for the Basque people against an oppressor, and the chosen symbol for the game against a nation currently suffering a genocidal campaign from the Israeli military.
It was 1-0 on four minutes, with a succession of corners leading to Unai Elgezabal’s easy header into the far corner, a smile from Jagoba Arrasate his reward. Palestine’s 4-4-2 quickly morphed into a five-man line of desperation, even so it was doing little to stop the quick changes of play from Jon Gorotxategi and Mikel Jauregizar, the duo swiping the ball left to right with ease in between the lines of an attempt at a press on them.
Qunbar’s leg wasn’t long enough to get a touch on a hopeful long ball played over the top and into Aitor Fernández’s orbit; Zubeldia’s was and the chasing forward bore the brunt of a strong challenge that cut short a potential opening.
It took 15 minutes for any of the Palestinian national team players to have a touch in the half of their opponents and almost 20 for them to have what may be termed settled possession; faster, sharper, more comfortable were the Basques, Arrasate able to count on some of the top names in the Spanish first division. Battat came close after taking advantage of good work from Seyam down the left, his deflected shot being sent over Aitor Fernández in the Euskadi goal.
Kike Barja’s low effort from inside the box forced a save from Rami Hamada but the counter allowed Seyam to break down the left and forced a corner to Palestine, drawing a cheer from all four sides of the ground louder than the celebration of that of the goal scored by their own team. The game suddenly opened up as Jon Guridi squirmed past a trio of challenges and sent the ball over; Guruzeta’s header flashed wide and Euskadi were on top when the flares cracked and cries of ‘IN-DE-PEN-DEN-CIA’ from reverberated throughout the air.
A close range Guruzeta header came close to copying his side’s opener before half-time, but when Hugo Rincón was brought down by Wadji Mohammed seconds later, he didn’t miss from the spot. From a fans’ perspective, the goal was merely another excuse for more flares.
The attacker saw another free header land in the stands as the game resumed, a cry into the sky, still filled with smoke, his only return, Arrasate’s team were once again camped fimrly in the final third, with respite only ever coming from the linesman’s flag.
Keeping warm on the sidelines became a theme for the substitutes as Euskadi tap-tap-tapped the ball in their half, and fingers were kept warm in the stands with claps to the beat of a chant of ‘FREEDOM FOR PALESTINE’. The green shirts pushed and a wayward Nico Serrano cross nearly flashed inside Rami Hamada’s near post, with only his quick reflexes keeping the scoreline down.
Substitute Izeta put the Basque badge to his lips after skipping past Hamada and slotting into the bottom corner: count one, two, three, four flares lit behind the goal for that one, the last of which was sent onto the pitch to whistles from the other three sides of the ground.
And so, the final whistle was blown by Jon González, his most difficult decision of the night, and the 51,396 fans once again filled the streets, the stadium still glowing both inside and out.
That jubilant little girl that had never seen San Mamés before was not from around here. A blue and white-striped football shirt gave that away: the colours of Real Sociedad, the team from San Sebastián, a city 79km east of Bilbao but still in the same region. While the rivalry between the two is friendly, that innate feeling of difference had inverted itself and become camaraderie, with fans travelling from across the region - and the entire country - to be at the celebration that was never about football.
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Euskadi won as the temperature plunged, but the game never mattered anyway. Speaking to the press afterwards, Palestine’s coach, Ehab Abu Jazar, called it “the best day of my life” and “a star that I will carry on my chest forever.” And in the words of that little girl, amazed by it all as well, it was beautiful.
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