The audience for American football in Spain has increased exponentially, even more so since Movistar + broadcasts five games per day on its channels #Vamos and Movistar Deportes.
Dictionary for laymen
What are we talking about when we talk about American football?
Every February, when the Super Bowl approaches, the grand final of the NFL (National Football League), in Fundéu (Fundación del Español Urgente) they put their hands to their heads: it is not just that it is a sport whose rules we are unknowable to many in these parts, it is that it seems impossible to understand a broadcast or the match chronicle without knowing how to translate Shakespeare’s iambic pentameters!
Here is a brief help:
Touchdown
It is the basic way to score goals in American football. It is achieved either by a player crossing the scoring line with the ball in his hands, or by receiving a pass from another teammate in the same area without the ball falling to the ground. Awards six points. In Spanish, the term rehearsal or simply scoring should be used, both… After scoring one, two other possibilities open up: getting an extra point by kicking the ball between the goal posts; or attempting a two-point conversion, which consists of achieving, from near the opponent’s goal line, that a player crosses again with the ball in his hands or receives a pass and catches the ball in the end zone.
Quarterback
In Spanish, they are known as quarterbacks. They are the leaders of the offensive team, the setters of the play with which they will try to cross the touchdown line and those in charge of giving the most complicated passes to the receivers.
Tackle
Tackling, the defensive movement by which they try to stop the person running with the ball in their hands from reaching the end zone, knocking them down or causing the ball to fall.
Down
It should be said opportunity or attempt. The attacking team must advance at least ten yards to maintain possession of the ball. It has, for this, four downs, that is to say: four chances. If in the first three he has not managed to cross that distance, the attacking team has the option of kicking the ball far: he renounces the ball, but his opponent must start attacking from his field and gain yard by yard from his opponent. .
Line of scrimmage
The imaginary line where one play must end and the next one begin (the one that the attacking team must beat). It should be said line of confrontation or hitting.
End zone
End zone; the back of your field to which, if your opponent arrives with the ball in his hands or receiving a far pass and catching the ball without it falling to the ground, he will score a trial for you.
Interception
According to the dictionary of the Royal Academy, it should be said interception, although the main dictionaries of use already include the voice interception. It is the play in which the defending team cuts a pass from their rival, destined for a receiver, and manages to keep the ball in their hands.
Fumble
It is the loose ball, lost by the attacking team, and that enables a recovery of possession by the team armed in defense.
A man from Pamplona and a Canadian meet in the NFL
Moses Molina defines himself as a self-taught person. As a child, Vancouver (Canada), where he was born in 1967, punished him with nine months of rain. “I only watched sports on television,” says one of the identity voices in the American football narration in Spain through Movistar +. Thus he was soaking in the hockey On ice from the NHL, from the wanderings of Reggie Jackson In MLB baseball, from Julius Erving’s antics, Dr, J, in the Philadelphia Sixers of the best basketball competition in the world, the NBA.
“As a good Canadian, my specialty was hockey on ice. I bombarded Alfredo Relaño and José Antonio Ponsetti, from Canal + with resumes, ”he recalls. “There was no email so they were on paper. I found out that they had bought the rights to the major American leagues and I told them that if they had the NHL that I was their man. ” They gave him a test, put him in a game and called him. “I have been lucky, the blessing if I were a believer, to have been able to narrate the four major leagues,” he says. For 16 years he has been doing it exclusively and regularly in the NFL.
Your partner Javier Lopez He grew up far from Canada, in Pamplona, where he began to watch different American sports with his father at the age of nine. Molina remembers how he met him: “He came in with Montreal Canadians helmets and I took a liking to him.” López followed him when he was little, of course. Canal + and Molina’s voice had been his window to football. “One of my first memories is also a double page that was made in the Diario AS on the day of the Super Bowl. There was no internet and so they presented you with a show that very few people knew about, but which began to grow little by little ”, says López. “In the last five years the audience has grown a lot in Spain. I think this is mainly linked to globalization. 20 years ago it was difficult to follow these leagues. Now from anywhere in the world you can follow the competition, see statistics, you have everything at your fingertips ”, he says.
The keys for this season
To try to understand what the NFL is about, Molina quotes a movie classic. “It’s like in Any given sunday, the movie in which Al Pacino stars. Anything can happen on any Sunday. The day last Sunday was exciting. You can’t take anything for granted. ” Although both he and López take a risk by marking what will be the attraction of this year, in addition to Tom Brady, the quarterback 44-year-old who continues to win championships. “Now there is a very interesting group of young people represented by Patrick Mahomes, today, for many, the best player in the world ”, explains López. Molina dares to name a team: “I think the Chargers, with new blood, can surprise.”
Five games per day
This season Movistar + offers five games per day spread over two channels: #Let’s go and Movistar Sports. Pure NFL from the early hours of Friday until Tuesday, that is, until the already mythical and recognizable Monday Night. The novelty comes this campaign with the incorporation of the Red Zone to the broadcasts of Movistar Deportes, which will complete the offer with several hours of monitoring the carousel of live matches on Sunday evening. The weight of the narratives will be borne by Moses Molina and Javi López; what’s more, Ruben Ibeas, one of the most authoritative voices to analyze the NFL, and Alvaro Rodriguez –Which debuts this year in Movistar + – will be in charge of reeling off the details of each match.
Over-detailed garments, American bars: the NFL takes to the Spanish streets
The colors in American football feel differently as they pass through Europe. When it comes to buying an NFL jersey, those more fashionistas than sports choose them because of availability in a second-hand store or online platform or because the red of the Kansas City Chiefs goes well with jeans or the gray of the Seattle Seahawks fits with some Chinese. The trend of wearing oversized garments and the consolidation of sportswear both in the streets and in the offices have caused this type of breathable, short-sleeved and square-patterned t-shirts to be seen more and more. They are worn by young people at festivals, rappers in the neighborhood and presenters like Ibai Llanos in his office, that is, his home.
It is at home where the more leisurely fans follow the championship through the Movistar + broadcasts and in the so-called ‘sportsbars’ where those who seek to celebrate as a group a race from the’ wide receiver ‘or an 80-yard pass from the’ quarterback ‘. But there is a third way: NFL Madrid is an association that organizes meetings on Sundays in an establishment in the Arganzuela district to watch football matches. Most of the attendees, according to one of the promoters, are teachers and students from the United States who live in the capital and Spanish fans, some on American football teams. They have six screens and the comments are in English. The atmosphere is calm, there are even parents with their babies. Sport is important but friends are more important. These NFL meetings, started in 2014, help veterans in the city answer the first questions that newcomers have. The bar they reserve offers traditional tapas and sandwiches. “Nobody comes to Spain in search of food from the US,” says the organizer. But there are those who in Spain miss the majority sport in the United States.
