Like dozens of national football teams, Spain will be hoping to seal their place at the 2026 World Cup in the current international window. But, on Saturday, the attention of more than 50,000 fans at San Mamés Stadium in the northern city of Bilbao was entirely on two teams that will not be there: the Palestine and Basque Country national football teams.
The streets of Bilbao were filled with Palestinian flags, with supporters of both clubs united by a common cause. Money raised from the match was donated to Doctors Without Borders, and entertainment before the players crossed the white line included a mix of the two cultures.
“When Palestine was eliminated from the World Cup qualifiers, we had the opportunity to show solidarity with them,” Mikel de Gregorio, sporting director of the Basque Football Federation, told DW. Everyone DW spoke to that day mentioned the genocide in Gaza, as determined by a UN commission of inquiry in September, whose findings were rejected by Israel. Current estimates put the number of Palestinians killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza over more than two years at close to 70,000. The attacks were preceded by a Hamas-led incursion into Israel on October 7, 2023, which killed nearly 1,200 people.
message of unity
“Palestine is going through a genocide, they are being massacred in Gaza and history will ask us what we did to stop it at that time,” De Gregorio said.
“And from the world of sports, from football, we are trying to help financially and give visibility to this match and this situation around the world,” he said. “What we want is to send solidarity to the Palestinian people, so that everyone can see it.”
This was the situation on Saturday. Palestine lost the match 3–0 but that was not on the minds of most people in attendance, whether on the field or in the stands.
“It’s amazing. I really didn’t expect so many people and crowds on the streets. I didn’t expect this support but it was amazing,” said Emilio Saba, who recently switched international football allegiance from Peru to Palestine.
“It showed that we are together,” Saba said, “not just the Palestinian people, you know, the whole world.”
Sabah, like almost all the remaining Palestinian teams, is based abroad. Since the war began following a Hamas-led incursion in 2023, there is no league, no functioning clubs, and hundreds of athletes have been injured or killed, including the country’s most famous footballer, 41-year-old Suleiman al-Obeid, nicknamed the “Palestinian Pele”.
The Palestine Football Association said he was killed when Israel attacked civilians waiting for humanitarian aid.
Basic search for FIFA recognition
Palestine, as it is known by football’s global governors, FIFA, has not played a home game since 2019, although a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war perhaps makes a return slightly more possible. But despite the best efforts of De Gregorio and others in the federation, unlike the Basque region of Spain, the team is not recognized by FIFA.
Eucalyptus Fútbol Seleccioa, as the team is known in Basque, plays ad-hoc friendlies using a team composed of players born in the autonomous Basque region of Spain and the French Basque Country. The unofficial national team has previously featured World Cup winners such as Xabi Alonso (Spain) and Bixente Lizarazu (France) and boasts a strong squad from the top league in Spain, although Basque-born players prefer to play for the official national team. Any player eligible for Saturday’s game could have played in Spain’s 4-0 win over Georgia.
The president of the Basque Federation told DW that Saturday’s game was the most important in its history, noting that while the devastation in Gaza was incomparable, the Basques’ desire for independence from Spain parallels the desires of its football rivals.
“We are a culture with our own language, our own identity, our own traditions and sometimes it is difficult to explain to the rest of the world that we want our place in the world. So from that perspective, I think we see some parallels with the situation in Palestine.”
TV blackout over La Liga Palestine support
Such support mirrors that shown by the biggest club sides of the Basque region. Real Sociedad, Eibar, Alaves and Osasuna have all shown support in their stadiums. Athletic Bilbao, who normally play at San Mamés, has flown banners of support in the Champions League and in October invited a group of Palestinian refugees onto the field displaying the message: “Athletic Palestine Alde. Stop Genocideia,” meaning “Athletic stands with Palestine. Stop the Genocide.”
The scenes were blocked in the broadcast of the La Liga match, leading Athletic’s Spanish international goalkeeper Unai Simon to say: “It was very beautiful and emotional. It really makes me sad that it wasn’t shown on TV.”
Fellow Spanish side Real Madrid have banned Palestinian flags from their matches, but Spain was one of the first European countries to recognize the Palestinian territories as a state in May 2024. In September, the final stage of the high-profile cycling event Vuelta a España was abandoned in Madrid following pro-Palestinian protests.
After Saturday’s game, Palestine travels to Catalonia, another autonomous region of Spain that has an equally rich soccer history, to face the Catalan national team. Although neither of these teams will be traveling to North America in June, they have proven capable of making themselves and each other heard.
Miguel Cano in Bilbao contributed to this report.
Edited by: Chuck Penfold