If one day I was attacked by a microphone, unexpectedly hidden behind a sweet smile, before I took the sucks off my eyes, I would ask him if I feel Spanish, I would answer him no. I don't feel like I don't feel. And if I asked for an argumentative answer, without losing myself to incense tradition, to naphthalene folklore or to vanishing “us”, I would say to him: “I cannot be Spanish because the world of sport completely differentiates us.”

Let's see. The GP World Motorcycle Championship has just shown us how the logic of the neighbours works: last race, in Valencia. Three Spaniards against one Italian and three at stake. Two motorists, Pedrosa and Marquez, from the same group, Hondos, and the third, from the team of the Italian Rossi, from Yamaha, that is, Lorenzo.

I'd rather lose it to mine, even though that extra puts us at risk for ourselves, because when you're riding 200 kilometers an hour on two wheels, the risk multiplies on each curve. Try to advance, win the race but give the championship to the “rival”? What will it be, so as not to let it enter the village tomorrow! But competitiveness? And what? To win a paisano, you have to do that and more! And the fact that the people of Marquez did not earn the housewives, but Lorenzo, who did not belong to his team, celebrated him high and proud. It was a matter of affection.

A few days later, two other sportsmen have gone face-to-face to close the game. The commentators will be Josemari Olasagasti and Aitzol Atutxa, respectively. A couple of days after the conditions had been agreed, you could hear things like this in the surrounding bars: “If the old man wins it is because the young man does nothing, not because he has done a lot.” “If the young man wins, he will stay as if he had played a good role! If he does not win the one who is near retirement, as he is the current champion, the aizkolaritza is over.” And I still like pearls more: “If the Mindegia or Arrospide a few years ago had caught them, before the works were finished, they would have gone to the bar Cantabrico and bleached the pound and a half.” “When will they have to play the right game with the coins of the stock exchange in play, without playing the partition?” And of this kind, the cathedral of Vitoria like the tiles.

It's a brand, but that's what sets us apart. Wanting to help, it costs what it cost and we were willing to get angry. I couldn't want anything good to those around me. Tertulias too long in the economy.

That, and the patriotic cries of the journalists who comment on the Spanish football team.

If we are like that, it has been in vain, and it is, mistakenly or rightly, the attempt to unravel what we are doing.