This is our "Fado"

Yesterday, it was all flag waving, horns and cheering, across the capital, in the build-up to the Euro 2012 semi-final against Spain last night. Spain - our nearest neighbours, closest cousins and biggest rivals. The form guides and the bookies predict a Spanish victory, a repeat of the last time the two met in the World Cup two years ago. And so it has turned out, though not quite as expected. Portuguese resilience kept the scoreline to 0-0, and the verdict had to be settled with that infamously random contest of the penalty shootout.

So the drive back from where we had been watching the game with friends in Cascais, was eerily subdued and quiet.  But a comment today from someone posting on Facebook this morning caught my eye as being quite perceptive.
 
 "We are portuguese, and this is our "fado", we will be sad for a bit, but we still have our sun, our ocean, our fish! Tomorrow we'll be fine again...”

Fado, roughly translated, means fate, and of course, it’s also the name for that musical genre of melancholy that is so essentially Portuguese. But, not only in regard to football, also down through history and even in the current stoic response to the massively serious financial crisis that’s hitting us, it marks out the character of the Portuguese. A readiness to accept whatever comes our way, and get on with life nonetheless. This is a great strength. But this same “fado” can also be the downfall of a people who seldom seem to really rise to the occasion and seize the opportunity to believe in themselves and become really great.