U.S. President Donald Trump has praised Spain’s World Cup winner Ferran Torres for wearing a “Make Spain Great Again” cap throughout the trophy celebrations, after concluding that it was a “great compliment” rather than a jibe.
Torres scored the only goal of a tense final against Argentina to earn Spain’s second men’s world title last Sunday in New Jersey. The Barcelona striker joined his compatriots in a bleary-eyed trophy parade through Madrid the following day, showing off some sore heads, the trophy and, in the case of Torres, a divisive hat.
The 26-year-old was pictured wearing the red baseball cap for much of the festivities. Trump’s presidential campaign carried the motto “Make America Great Again,” and the President was convinced that he had another supporter in Torres.
“Well, he’s a great player and he was wearing, essentially, a ‘Make America Great Again’ cap. So it was a nice tribute and I think he meant that very nicely. We appreciate it,” Trump told assembled media at the White House on Friday.
“I saw him wearing the, essentially, ‘Make America Great Again’ hat, and I know that he meant it as a very great compliment and we appreciate it.”
It’s unclear what Torres meant by the cap as the player is yet to offer a public comment on his intentions. In the absence of any certainty, the void has been filled by rampant politicization of the act.
The Politicization of Spain’s World Cup Win
Torres could have enjoyed a much less controversial revery of what may very well prove to be the defining moment of his entire professional career. The striker who gave himself the nickname ‘El Tiburón’—The Shark—had a sandbar shark named after him at the Oceanogràfic de València, the largest aquarium in Europe.
Instead, images of Torres’s cap, which he mostly wore back-to-front, were co-opted by social media accounts of the White House and the radical right wing Spanish political party Vox.
Spain threatened to serve as an awkward World Cup winner for a tournament hosted in the United States under Trump’s administration. There have been clashes between the two nations over the U.S. military incursion into Venezuela, Spain’s increase of its defense budget at NATO and the use of jointly-run military bases at Morón and Rotafor amid the U.S. war against Iran. Trump has called the European nation a “terrible partner” and threatened in March to “cut off all trade with Spain.”
“We don’t want anything to do with Spain,” he said.
Torres’s cap, intentionally or otherwise, has seen Trump’s stance soften, at least to one Spaniard.
