The Soccer Conquistadors: Why Spain’s World Cup Has Had An Imperial Flavor

Most people associate the phrase "the empire on which the sun never sets" with Victorian Britain, which at the dawn of the 20th century ruled over a vast array of territories including Canada, British Honduras, the Ionian Islands, Egypt, the Somaliland, India, Hong Kong and Fiji.

But the phrase was actually coined centuries before by Italian diplomat Giovanni Battista Guarini, who in 1585 referred to the Spanish Empire as the realm on which “nè anco, quando annotta, il Sol tramonta” — “even when it grows dark, the sun never sets.”

Indeed, under Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and his Spanish Habsburg heirs, people on every continent except Antarctica were ruled from Madrid. By marching huge armies across Europe and traversing far-off seas on caravels and galleons, Spain came to control territorial possessions extending from Peru to the Philippines.

And during the 2026 World Cup, many of their descendants have watched their national teams face off against players representing their former imperial overlords.

As a result of the random luck that characterizes FIFA group stage draws, this edition of the tournament has seen La Roja take the field against nations that, at some point or another, were part of the Spanish empire. The sole exceptions to this coincidence have been matches against France and Saudi Arabia.

In its first match of the World Cup, Spain faced off against Cape Verde, the West African archipelago colonized by the Portuguese in the 15th century. After Spain invaded Portugal in 1580, all of Lisbon’s imperial possessions — among them, the 10 volcanic islands that make up modern-day Cape Verde — came under de facto Spanish rule until 1640, when the forced Iberian Union was dissolved and Portugal regained its independence.

Back in the present day, after defeating Saudi Arabia — a country that came into existence after the Spanish Empire had collapsed and Madrid's power had faded away — Spain won its match against Uruguay in Guadalajara, Mexico. That South American nation was once part of the vast Spanish Viceroyalties of Peru and later the Río de la Plata, created by Spain in 1535, and declared its independence from the motherland in 1810.

The game was overshadowed by talk of colonialism, but that discussion involved Spain's legacy in the host country of Mexico. Back in 2019, then-Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador demanded Spanish King Felipe VI apologize for the abuses committed by his country during its 16th century conquest of Mesoamerica. Madrid declined to do so, fueling a high-level rift that continued under López Obrador's successor, President Claudia Sheinbaum, who broke with tradition by refusing to invite Spain's monarch to her inauguration in 2024.

In an apparent gesture of rapprochement, while attending an exhibition on Mexican indigenous art in Madrid earlier this year, Spain's monarch unexpectedly acknowledged the "abuses and ethical controversies" committed by Spanish conquistadors.

"There are things that, when we study them, in our judgment, with our current values, obviously cannot make us proud," Felipe added.

The statement paved the way for a diplomatic thaw that was consolidated ahead of Spain's match in Guadalajara. Prior to attending the game, Felipe made use of a layover in Mexico City to meet with Sheinbaum for a chat that was widely interpreted as putting an end to seven years of uneasy relations between the two countries.

Complicated legacies

After that win, La Roja triumphed over Austria — a dominion over which Charles V largely administered from Spain.

Then the team took on Portugal, a country whose identity is rooted in its resistance to Madrid's expansionist ambitions — concerns that aren't exaggerated. Since 1580, Spain has carried out six full-scale invasions of its western neighbor, and as recently as 1974, ailing Spanish dictator Francisco Franco drew up plans to deploy troops to Lisbon to snuff out the left-leaning Carnation Revolution.

Since the restoration of democracy in both countries, fears of annexation have vanished. They’ve been largely replaced by the friendly relations that were on display during the match — even if some Spanish satirists couldn't help but gloat at their neighbor's defeat by depicting King Phillip II, the Spanish monarch who oversaw the conquest of Portugal in 1580, ushering Cristiano Ronaldo off the pitch in a wheelchair.

In the quarterfinal, La Roja faced off against another rival that hasn't forgotten its time under Spanish rule: Belgium.

Between 1556 and 1714, the country was known as the Spanish Netherlands, and when its inhabitants began to flirt with Protestantism, their ultra-Catholic rulers in Madrid responded with a violent crackdown that triggered the Eighty Years' War. The conflict is a key part of Belgian identity, as is evident from the iconic memorial in Brussels commemorating Count Lamoral of Egmont and Count Philip of Horn, two noblemen who were executed by the Spaniards and are now hailed as national heroes.

Curiously, the nickname by which Spain's national team is known — la furia española, or the Spanish fury — refers to the country's brutal rule over the Spanish Netherlands. The moniker was coined to refer to a series of atrocities committed by poorly paid Spanish troops who mutinied and took their anger out on cities including Mechelen and Antwerp, where tens of thousands of civilians were raped and killed in 1572 and 1576.

After beating Belgium's Red Devils, La Roja took on France — the only modern state that can boast of having ruled over continental Spain. Under the pretense of a joint Franco-Spanish invasion of Portugal, in 1808 French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte deployed his troops south of the Pyrenees and forced the ruling Bourbon royal family to abdicate. In their place, he installed his brother Joseph as king, and effectively turned Spain into a client state of the Napoleonic Empire for the next five years.

The experience had a lasting effect on the national psyche, with Spaniards viewing France as a much more powerful country than themselves to this day. That complex potentially contributed to the collective euphoria that followed victory over Les Bleus earlier this week.

In the tournament's final match, Spain's national team once again faces off against players representing a former colony: Argentina, which like Uruguay was part of the Spanish Viceroyalties of Peru and later the Río de la Plata between 1516 and 1810.

In the two centuries that have elapsed since Argentina became independent, relations between the two countries have remained remarkably strong. During the Spanish Civil War, Argentina opened its doors to Spanish asylum-seekers of all political backgrounds. And in its aftermath, when Spain suffered a devastating famine, Juan Domingo Perón's left-leaning populist government donated enormous quantities of food to the starving nation, declaring that “a child does not abandon its mother.”

While recent relations between the two countries' leaders have been unusually tense — there's an ongoing feud between Argentina's libertarian populist President Javier Milei and center-left Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez — their personal animus isn't expected to spill over at the festivities in New York and New Jersey. Sánchez will be at the final; Milei won’t.

Ultimately, the tournament wraps with a game contested by two countries united by a common language, culture and, above all, an all-consuming obsession with soccer that trumps all other concerns.