The winning man of the Spanish national team, Ferran Torres, was caught wearing a ‘Make Spain Great Again’ hat during Monday’s victory parade in Madrid, sparking debate over whether the scorer of the only goal in Sunday’s World Cup final wanted to deliver a political message mocking US President Donald Trump, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, or simply express genuine support for a patriotic cause.
Images and video footage of the Barcelona forward in the iconic red hat are spreading like wildfire on social media at the time of writing, with several different interpretations emerging simultaneously.
British tabloid The Sun immediately declared that Torres was trolling Donald Trump, while Spanish coverage was, surprisingly, more cautious, describing the gesture as a reference or parody and leaving its meaning unresolved.
The uncertainty indeed allowed commentators to see what they wanted. To Trump’s critics, it was a joke at the US president’s expense after he lingered conspicuously during Spain’s trophy ceremony. To some on the Spanish right, it looked more like an unapologetic burst of national pride—and perhaps a barb aimed not at Trump but at Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez.
While none of this can be proved, the latter interpretation fits Torres’s public political record better than the idea that he was mocking Trump. After the catastrophic Valencia floods in 2024, the Valencia-born player demanded ‘a change in this country’, declared that ‘the state has failed’, and wrote that ‘the people save the people’, before signing off: ‘Visca Valencia y Viva España.’ His anger targeted political leaders broadly, but the language was unmistakably patriotic and anti-establishment.
At the time, Pedro Sánchez was already prime minister. Currently, however, the Socialist leader is probably more politically vulnerable than ever. Despite La Roja winning the country’s second World Cup title, Sánchez’s wife, Begoña Gómez, is set to face a jury trial on influence-peddling and embezzlement charges; his brother has been convicted of administrative misconduct; and former transport minister José Luis Ábalos received a 24-year sentence for corruption. Sánchez describes the cases involving his family as politically motivated, while public dissatisfaction is nevertheless rising, with recent anti-corruption and anti-establishment protests attracting more and more people.
‘After the catastrophic Valencia floods in 2024, the Valencia-born player demanded “a change in this country”, declared that “the state has failed”’
Adding another layer to the speculation, Sánchez himself recently wore a ‘Make Science Great Again’ cap, widely—and most likely correctly—interpreted as a swipe at Trump. The two leaders have had a difficult relationship since Trump’s return to the White House, increasingly so since the joint American–Israeli operation against Iran. The US president recently called Spain a ‘terrible’ NATO partner and a ‘lost cause’, and threatened to halt trade after Madrid refused access to military facilities on its territory linked to the war in the Middle East. Sánchez responded that Spain would not be intimidated into supporting a conflict it regarded as reckless and illegal.
The slogan ‘Make Spain Great Again’ (Hacer España Grande Otra Vez) has also been used by the right-wing, anti-immigration Vox party in the past and could therefore reflect Torres’s preferred political position.
The likeliest reading is probably less ideological but hardly apolitical: a genuinely patriotic footballer celebrating the belief that, for one triumphant night, he really had made Spain great again.
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