Abstract
National playing styles are part of national identities. During the 1940s, a series of defeats questioned the virtue of the Spanish playing style, known as the Spanish Fury, characterized by improvisation, genius, courage and enthusiasm. Isolated from international football trends, Spain has despised the use of man-marking and tactical discipline. Analysis of both official documents and the Spanish press would show that Francoism was sympathetic to the fury’s discourse, being close to the regime’s narrative itself, but needed victories to gain internal support and international recognition in a critical moment of diplomatic pressure and isolation. Therefore, the dictatorship forced the football authorities to undergo a modernization process, which involved abandoning the traditional discourse of the fury, at least momentarily.
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