Being English I came to the conclusion many years ago that I’d either be extremely lucky - or having one of those dreams that you try to hide from your mother - if I was going to ever experience an England World Cup win. If it should ever happen I can’t describe with words how the people of our great nation will react; I can say that it would be fairly mental and I could be drunk for a week or six. So imagine my complete confusion when Spain managed that feat this summer and I was living in Catalonia, Spain where not too many people cared!
We all know that Catalonia is the home of FC Barcelona, and home of eight of Spain’s World Cup winning stars. What some of you will not know is that Catalonia is a region in Spain where many years ago a nasty chap called ‘Franco’ treated the Catalan people like certain Premier League footballers treat females.
For a start, he banned their native language during his dictatorship (they speak ‘Catalan’, which is a mix between Castellano Spanish and French, and is about as rough as Liverpool’s early season form), he also toyed with their emotions on the regular. To cut a 40-year story short, because of Franco many Catalan people were killed, driven from their families and homes or at least highly offended, which means that the true Catalan people don’t like Spain very much and want their own independence from it.
After Capello and the lads managed nothing more than improving Germany’s goal tally for the tournament, I decided to follow the Spaniards for the remainer of the world’s greatest tournament - after all they play class football, I live in Barcelona and my girlfriend is Spanish. I figured, I’m not Spanish, but there’s a good chance I could join a nation in celebrating their happiness and talent.
I was in a bar getting ready to watch the quarter final between Spain and Paraguay, thinking “this is going to be nuts, just like when England play…only I wont be nervous as Spain are decent and I don’t care too much, but all these crazy Spain fans will make it fun anyway”.
To my complete amazement the place emptied about ten minutes before kick-off and they switched the channel. I asked a lot of people what on God’s green earth was going on, only to be informed that they don’t watch Spain play in a lot of places because Barcelona are the national team of Catalonia and they hate Spain. A lot of the people also said they were supporting Paraguay. Ah, the reason Spain never play at the Nou Camp!
I was really surprised and felt a bit sorry for them as a football fan. Maybe this was due to my lack of knowledge on the subject but still, they are a part of this great footballing nation but will never celebrate its football because of a guy who died 30 years ago. Although having the attitude that Barcelona are your national team will have its rewards as they win a lot, it’s not real international football.
I love being an Arsenal fan, but nothing compares to when England win a big tournament game. With everyone jumping around losing their minds together, throwing beer at each other and thinking for five minutes that we have a chance of winning something.
What about the eight Barcelona players representing Spain? I asked the same question. “We’re happy for them but we wont celebrate” was the main attitude toward this. My issue with that is, is it not like one (or eight) of our heroes playing for Germany every once in a while and then coming back to play for England? I remember seeing Xavi and Puyol running around with the Catalan flag after the final, how do the Spanish people feel about that I wonder?
It isn’t everyone in Catalonia who feels like this. The city of Barcelona is very international and many Catalan residents consider themselves ‘Spanish’ as they either descend from other parts of Spain or don’t get involved in the political history of the country.
Anyway, I just wanted to share that as it was quite a surprise to me and I’d be interested to hear the readers thoughts…GO.
Heard about this before. Quite similar to the “we’re not English, we’re Scouse” attitude of some sections on the Merseyside.
You’re missing that Catalonia has a national team, and a team that the region should rightly be proud of. During the Franco regime, the Catalonian team continued to play, despite the threat against them. They’re not recognized by FIFA or UEFA, but they still exist. It’s virtually impossible to compare political situations, but I would say it is more comparable to the United Kingdom being the recognized team, rather then England, Scotland, Wales, and N. Ireland individually. There would be people that would recognize that this was the team that was meant to represent them, and cheer for it, and there would be people that would be understandably pissed off that their own unique national identity was being lumped with the rest of the unitary state.
Any, wasn’t missing the Catalan national team, just my experience and time here talking to a lot of Catalan people about it has shown that the ‘Catalan’ team isn’t really seen as ‘the national team to follow’ as they don’t play very often. The Catalan people just follow there club teams religiously and when the Catalan team play, of course they cheer…but its never more than an international friendly atmosphere. I saw the game last year when they beat Argentina at the Nou Camp and of course it meant something to the people, but its nothing compared to how it would have been during Franco’s dictatorship. The problem with it is, as you mentioned, it’s not recognised so they can’t play in the tournaments or official competition.
I understand your point though. It would’ve been a great ‘middle finger’ to Franco when they played against his rules and yes, the Catalan people are right to be pissed off. I would be too!