Kerala’s Spanish fans, a product of La Liga on TV in the last decade

The telecast of the Spanish La Liga and Champions League in the last decade turned the Malayali into a Spanish fan. (source: AP)

From the glassed window of the team bus, Antonio Blanco, sipping energy drink, winked at the impassioned gathering on the pavement waving their arms furiously to catch his attention. Keeping aside the energy drink, he unfurled his smartphone, turned himself around and took a selfie with the teeming crowd at the background. Seeing this, even a policeman, stationed to manage the crowd from thronging the bus, sneaked into the group and began posing for the pic. Soon, several of Blanco’s teammates heaped into his seat and began taking pictures of the gathering, who by now were so wild that it seemed they would breach the police wall and raid the bus.

Only a few minutes before had the same policeman ordered them to not click pictures, due to “protocol” reasons. “Protocol” has become something of a buzzword here.

Disturbed by the noise the boys were making at the back of the bus, a visibly irritated support staff, elderly enough to be their grandfather, turned around and screamed at them. For a brief minute, the boys disassembled and coiled onto the seats, only to resume their unprecedented revelry again.

This time, the wizened support staff didn’t bother to disturb them. He let them be. But the attention suddenly diverted to the lithe frame of Abel Ruiz, the most recognised Spaniard, boarding the bus and pulling his slightly dishevelled hair into place, conscious of the hundred-odd camera flashes merging into his face, but still coy to pose for a picture. Spain’s coach, the ever-smiling Santiago Denia, chuckled and waved a good bye before slamming the bus door shut. The crowd reciprocated on cue, and kept waving until the bus faded into thin yellowness of the sodium lamps afar.

Much to their dismay, they were kept waiting for almost an hour, for unlike the other grounds they had practised, the colossal stands of Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium block their view entirely. The entrances are few and are heavily guarded that no one can smuggle oneself into the stadium either. But their disappointment seem to have vanished in the end. “Ivanmaru polikum, youthanmara (They will rock, they are all so young,” says one of them. Youthan is a Anglo-Malayalam portmanteau word that signifies a fashionable youngster.

While they might not have seen them practise and unroll their slick, butterfly football, they definitely are impressed by their style quotient. Hairstyle is something that most Malayalees appreciate of footballers-so you could find pictures and posters of David Beckham and Ronaldo inside the salons than the popular film stars.

Then the supporters of Spain, mostly, are young, in the 20-35 age-group, those who have started watching or have watched most of their football in the noughties, with the explosion of La Liga and Champions League on the telly in the early half of the decade and later impelled by Spain’s global success. It’s with a flagrant derision that the hardened Brazil and Argentinian fans see their Spain counterparts.

But the latter are an unflustered, serious ones. Unlike their Latin American fan brigade, they don’t encourage or engage in who-is-better-than-who debates. They just watch, celebrate, make a lot of noise and move on.

They also faithfully turn up for their practise sessions, wherever they’re playing, and whether they’re denied entry or not. Their passion surprised Spain’s coach Denia.

“I was really surprised with the kind of support we are getting here. Hope, they’ll turn up for the Brazil match. I heard Brazil has lot of followers here,” he said. Denia’s assumption is true, but he’s not factoring in the anti-Brazil group here (which comprise mostly Argentina supporters).

“Aesthetics” is the reason several supporters say they love Spain. In the Northern Malabar dialect, Spanish players are called ‘monjanmar’ (beautiful ones). Denia’s team is not short on aesthetic quotient either. Not just the mesmerising tiki-taka-which for all its inherent flaws, continue to be their game’s throbbing heartbeat-but in the crisp silkiness of their game, a game without a hint of brutality, like 20 players floating on the field.

Before they begin playing among themselves, all of them divide into a group of five apiece and exchange short passes in a triangle. This then is delightfully transferred onto the field, though Denia asserts that there’s still a great deal of perfection to be attained. For teens, being teens, are occasionally prone to a little showboating. Like when Pedro Ruiz attempted an overhead kick, from outside the box, when there were a couple of unmarked forwards yelling out for a cross. From the sidelines, the coach shoved his water bottle onto the ground.

Tiki taka has little space for showmanship. And his means didn’t justify the end either. For the shot eluded the far post by a fair country mile.

“Team work over individual glory,” Denia emphasises once in every five sentences he utters. “Our job is to work together in a group so that one can perform to one’s best level,” he says. This is how they won the U-17 European Championship. This is how they’re going to win the U-17 World Cup too, he says. And it would help his bunch of stylists that they have a healthy band of supporters behind them, though cheering them in a language, barely comprehensible.