Sometimes, a soft news item ends up being the story of the day. And not because important things aren't happening, which there are and in abundance, but because men and women also live on moments of happiness and relaxation. Girona's victory over Real Madrid at Santiago Bernabéu is one of those news stories which meets all the requirements to finish on a happy note this Sunday full, in terms of news, of things which we'll have time to talk about during the week. Including the first signs of slowing down of the Partido Popular and its candidate for prime minister, Pablo Casado, an immature politician who so far has only shown that he knows how to insult and mislead over his master's.
Girona's victory at the Bernabeu is an important sports triumph. But it's also many other things: a new example that no feat is impossible, the prize for persistence and self-improvement and a demonstration of the importance of a cohesive group of people with a common objective. Three things which are often ignored and but which it's good for us to be reminded about. Girona is a team which is seen sympathetically around Catalonia. Obviously among Barça supporters and much more from now on, but I think it's fairly general and, in part, because it's not a team with hang-ups. They don't give up easily and in the two seasons they've spent in the first division, they've been able to claim points from Barcelona, Atlético de Madrid and Real Madrid. So many from the latter to become its true bête noire. And enduringly so.
On the other hand, it's striking (or not) the limited news impact in the print media of the successful demonstration held 24 hours earlier in the streets of Barcelona to support the political prisoners and denounce the unjust trial they're suffering in the Supreme Court and which vice-president Oriol Junqueras and minister Quim Forn have both so far passed with flying colours. I read media outlets who want to make the democratic movement which has been able to repeatedly bring the most people out into the streets disappear from their pages - they've got an excuse with the two election days in a row to come in Spain. Sánchez should be thanked for having first collaborated with PP to apply article 155 of the Constitution and fire the Catalan government and now, after more than a year of unjustified pretrial detention, blurring over a trial in which Spanish democracy is also being judged.
This Tuesday, hearings will restart with the testimony of minister Jordi Turull and Raül Romeva. We'll see what happens. We've seen, so far, that the ministers have prepared the case in depth. Perhaps for that reason, TV channels (public TVE clearly) and the Madrid press are opting to not give the trial the importance it deserves.