When we were digging for gold in America

Spain wins on Sunday Football EC and the men’s category at Wimbledon. This also has significance outside the arena. The Economist wrote Ahead of the final, the national team’s recent success has united the Spanish team, a country that has always had ideological and geographical tensions, but in recent years they have been more intense than usual.

While football has often been a conduit for the Basque and Catalan independence struggles, it is now moving in the opposite direction.

Several of the top players come from the Basque Country and Catalonia, and there are children of immigrants in the team, most notably 17-year-old prodigy Lamine Yamal, whose parents are from Morocco and Equatorial Guinea.

This is a good reminder On Tuesday, it was 30 years since the Swedish men’s football team won bronze at the World Cup. The hot summer of football left Sweden – to the tune of the GES song “När vi gräver guld i USA” – the era of the real estate crisis and 500% marginal interest. 1994 instead became the symbolic starting point of an era of extraordinary success for Sweden.

About the writing of this article In 1994 – The Summer That Changed Sweden Forever, published in May by Timbro, Joakim Broman shows how the 1994 era took off on New Year’s Eve 1987, when Jan Stenbeck founded TV3, breaking the Swedish television monopoly.

Eventually, both bourgeois and social democratic governments unleashed a wave of liberalization. Deregulation, free choice reforms, EU membership. And everyday freedoms, like more outdoor seating. The Øresund connection. The influence of the IT industry. Sweden became more interesting, more wealthy, more open. Soon we were striking gold all over the world.

Joakim Brohman also offers an interesting discussion on how sporting events shape national culture, identity, community, mood and economic outlook. He points out how the great success of Swedish tennis in the 1980s helped people realize that a country, despite its small size, could conquer the world. It reflected Sweden’s self-image when it came to playing a role in international politics.

There are examples About how the sport can have a negative impact on society, but its impact should generally be positive. So let’s look forward to Sweden’s medal party when the Summer Olympics begin in Paris next week.