Adios España

Overview

Adios España! (Goodbye, Spain!) is a catchphrase used by international football fans to make fun of Spain’s unexpectedly poor performance at the 2014 World Cup in Brazil and their subsequent group-stage elimination from the tournament in the group-stage.

Background

As of June 2014, the Spanish national football team is the reigning World Cup and European champions, ranked at #1 in the FIFA world rankings, having won three consecutive major continental tournaments, Euro 2008, 2010 World Cup and Euro 2012. Spain’s fantastic performance has been frequently praised by sports experts and news commentators as one of the best international sides in world football history, along with their pursuit of Tiki-taka, a style of play characterized by short passing, maneuvering through various channels and maintaing possession. The concept, which originated as a traditional approach of the Spanish pro-football team FC Barcelona under the direction of Johan Cruyff and evolved through his successors since the late 80s, became a hallmark of the Spanish national squad, as well as a worldwide trend, in the late 2000s. In addition, the Spanish team for the 2014 World Cup has the highest accumulated market value ($900 million) out of all 32 teams participating in the tournament.

Spain vs. Netherlands

On June 13th, 2014, Spain (FIFA Ranking: 1 / 207) and Netherlands (15 / 207) squared off against each other in the opening Group B match. While both teams were regarded as strong contenders for the title, many football news sites and sports-betting experts had forecasted a tight victory for Spain. For the most part of the first half, the prospect of victory for the Spanish team remained high as it was in the lead after scoring a penalty kick goal in the 26th minute; however, Spain’s defense began quickly deteriorating after a dramatic equalizer from the Dutch veteran Robin van Persie in the 43rd minute, ultimately giving up four additional goals to Netherlands in the second half.

Spain vs. Chile

On June 18th, Spain moved onwards with their second group-stage match against Chile (14 / 207), one of the many highly regarded South American teams competing in the tournament. However, the Spanish squad continued to spiral downwards after losing the first goal Chilean forward Eduardo Vargas in the 19th minute, followed by another goal from midfielder Charles Aranguiz in the 43rd minute. On top of it all, Spain missed a critical opportunity to catch up in the 53rd minute when Busques failed to tap-in a promising cross into a goal. After suffering a second-consecutive loss, the defending champion was effectively eliminated from the tournament.

Notable Developments

Online Reactions

As soon as the match ended in a 5 – 1 victory for the Netherlands, and a devastating defeat for Spain, the Dutch fans and World Cup followers took their celebration to Twitter, 4chan, Tumblr and Reddit with photoshopped GIFs featuring the national flags of both teams as visual metaphors to explain how the game went in a nutshell. Three days later, on June 16th, the joke took on a self-deprecatory turn when Portugal suffered a heavy loss against Germany in the opening group match between yet another pair of European contenders for the championship.

Following Spain’s second defeat against Chile on June 18th, dozens of photoshopped parodies and reaction GIFs poking fun at the defending champion’s unexpectedly early exit from the tournament surfaced on Twitter and elsewhere on the Internet.