Falcons fans’ forever question asked in Spain, too: Is it worth it?

MADRID — Fermin Grau has a 28-3 story worth your time and PTSD.

In February 2017, he was a student at a business college in Barcelona. After starting to follow the NFL a few years before the Falcons’ fateful Super Bowl disaster, he had selected them to be his team.

Talk about fateful.

Before he spent the 2016 spring semester at Emory, it was his way of creating a connection with our city. Grau began following the team even before he arrived, supporting the Falcons in coach Dan Quinn’s first season in 2015.

His nascent fandom was rewarded the next season, all the way up to the middle of the third quarter of Super Bowl 51. He began to ponder the idea of going to class on Monday as a supporter of the world champions.

“And the second half the game, you know how it went,” Grau told me Friday.

Grau and I spoke Friday in an auditorium at the Real Madrid complex, where the Falcons have prepared this week to play the Bengals at Santiago Bernabéu Stadium.

He is 32, lives in Barcelona and works for an e-commerce company. He is smart, polite and has a delightful way of rolling his R when he says the word “remember.”

In his seat, he demonstrated the posture he held for an hour after the game, rocking back and forth with his arms crossed, trying to make sense of what he had just witnessed.

“I imagine like all the other Falcons fans in that moment,” Grau said.

Worse, the game ended at 6:30 a.m. local time. He had an economics exam at 9 a.m.

“It was really hard to concentrate,” Grau said. “I was still thinking about the game in that moment, three or four hours before. Luckily, I passed.”

Here’s the thing.

Grau had been a Falcons fan for two seasons. His connection was one semester in a city in another country that he might never return to.

With roots so shallow, it would have been entirely understandable — some might say wise — to turn his back on this star-crossed franchise and run into the waiting arms of Tom Brady.

“But, I don’t know, in my case, the bond became harder and put in stone in that Super Bowl,” Grau said.

The ensuing years have tested that commitment. This season, the Falcons are at risk of extending their playoff drought to nine years. This is not a case of blind naivete on Grau’s part. He watches the games and follows the coverage.

For instance, his reaction to the team’s rain-soaked shutout loss to the Buccaneers this past Sunday a week after giving the 49ers their first loss of the season:

“What the hell was that? Where is the team of last week?”

Yet, he has continued to submit his loyalty. He was a founding member of their fan club — Dirty Birds España — and even went so far as to help register it with the government, making the Falcons one of only a few NFL teams with such documented support in the country, Grau said.

In tribute to the their team’s city, they did it on April 4 of this year, he said, on 404 (4/04) Day.

The club operates multiple social media channels, a website and a podcast. It even has a constitution.

And it’s not just him. The club has about 40 members, some dating back at least to the Falcons’ first Super Bowl season of 1998.

Like Grau, some aligned themselves through a personal connection with Atlanta. Others were drawn by stars such as Michael Vick or Matt Ryan. Some jumped on board in the two Super Bowl seasons.

They’ve shared the same conversations Falcons fans have had for decades in their seats at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium, the Georgia Dome and Mercedes-Benz Stadium, in living rooms, bars, office break rooms and text threads in southwest Atlanta, Buckhead, Gainesville, Macon and beyond.

Is it worth it?

“Obviously, everyone will say, ‘Oh, my God, it’s difficult to be a Falcons fan most of the time,’” Grau said. “But if you give us a choice of, ‘Now you can change your team. Do you regret that moment when you made that decision?’ I don’t think anyone will say, ‘Yes. I prefer to change. I prefer to go to another (team).’

“It’s true that most of us on the weekend, we are shouting alone at the TV and things like that. But we are very proud of being Falcons fans.”

There is no shaking Grau’s passion, only feeding it.

When he arrived by train from Barcelona for the game, one of his first priorities was a visit to the temporary fan shop that the NFL opened at Bernabéu. He dropped about 300 euros, including a Bijan Robinson jersey affixed with a patch commemorating the game.

At the store, “I have to control myself because if not, I will not be able to eat or do anything the rest of the month,” he said. “Like, ‘Breathe, control yourself. Don’t take all the things here.’”

Which brings us to Sunday. When the game was announced earlier this year, some in his group shed tears, Grau said.

The club will have a large contingent, fans gathering from across the country for this singular opportunity to support their favorite team in their own country.

“It’s like 10 years of Christmas presents together,” Grau said. “It’s amazing.”

Not any more amazing than the faithfulness of a group of Spaniards terminally obsessed with a so-so football team from Atlanta.