Christmas in Catalonia is a very traditional affair: a shitting wooden log that’s hit with a stick and taunted with a song threatening a further beating if he doesn’t shit out gifts for everyone (
caga tió); a small defecating figure hidden amongst the nativity scene (
el caganer); and the yearly outing of the Catalan national team (la
Selecció).
Nationalism and sport have gone hand in hand since the dawning of time – the ancient Olympic games – and have continued up until the present day. Who doesn’t know about the boycotting of the Moscow games by the US and the counter boycott of the Los Angeles games by the USSR? Sport has been used to nurture nationalism by every nation everywhere: Mussolini’s use of Italy’s World Cup success to champion his political ideology; Hitler’s Games in 1936 held in Munich to legitimatise the Third Reich; and Askhan Dejaga, a German-Iranian footballer, who in 2007 refused to play for Germany U-21’s because their opponents were Israel.
Nationalism though is not just used as an anathema but also to foster positive feelings within a nation: the pride felt in South Africa about their successful holding of this year’s World Cup; Greek pride at boring their way to the European Championship title in 2004; and Spain’s own national team succeeding in uniting a country through winning South Africa’s World Cup.
At the end of
that final in South Africa, I was already in bed, disappointed at the Dutch inability to hold on and win on penalties, listening to the radio. Horror struck when I heard the words ‘as Xavi and Puyol go around the pitch holding the flag’. I died on the inside. The Spanish flag is something many regions reject in preference of their own regional flag and the carrying of the Spanish flag is still largely seen as a right-wing activity. The radio was in English and maybe the presenter was unaware that the flag the Catalan players were carrying was their own Catalan flag and not the Spanish flag. I saw the photo myself a few weeks later and was relieved that I had died for nothing.
Both Xavi and Puyol partake in that funny festive tradition of playing for Catalunya, as do most Catalan players, but it falls very far short of being used successively to foster any notions of nationalism. Catalan football is run (poorly) like any other football association. La Federació Catalana de Futbol (FCF), the day after la
selecció convincingly beat Honduras 4-0, fifteen directors resigned leaving FCF head Jordi Casals to announce elections complaining that he has been the victim of an attempted
coup d’état, pointing the finger at resigning vice-president Andreu Subies and chief-infidel Josep Llaó.
Recent Catalan footballing opponents have been Brazil and Argentina. Brazil promised, after playing Catalunya in 2002, that if they won the World Cup later that year they would come back for another game. Sure enough they were victorious in Korea and Japan and two years later another game was had. Catalunya lost both games, 1-3 and 2-5 respectively, but there was something in the air. Argentina came to town just six months after the second Brazil match and the games were deemed total successes that seemed to capture the imaginations of everyone involved; most importantly Catalans themselves. Although playing Argentina twice since then, other games against the Basque Country, China, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Colombia, Paraguay, Chile, Lithuania and Honduras (since 2000) have failed to have quite the same draw.
Catalunya has played Spain four times (in 1924, ’34, ’47 and 1953) and winning just the once in 1947. However Spain isn’t the problem. Politically it might be, but socially something else is going on. The problem is actually F.C. Barcelona and RCD Espanyol, the two teams that supply ninety per cent of the talent pool. Both teams have their various versions of nationalism and what it means to be Spanish, Catalan or both. The point is that for so long both teams have taken on the mantle of representing their own ideologies that
la selecció, although fielding players from both teams; usually more Espanyol players than Barça employees, is seen as an add-on piece of entertainment. It isn’t taken seriously.
Catalanisme is expressed in other ways in Catalonia, not just through the mediums of scatological themed Christmas gimmicks, but through traditions and a history that dates back more than a thousand years. It’s more bound up in language than sport; more about democracy and democratic institutions than wearing a national shirt. Catalan politician and ex-vice president of Catalonia Josep-Lluís Carod-Rovira (voted worst Spaniard by
El Mundo newspaper last year precisely because he says he’s not one), appeared on the show
Tengo una pregunta para usted (I have a question for you) and was asked ‘I would like to know because I’ve been a Barça fan for a long, long time, that it’s really important to know that if we get independence, there’s doors that they’ll close on us and Ronaldinho, well he won’t be as interesting playing against Girona, with all respect to Girona, and I need to know, it makes me restless, like the man earlier, what would your solution be?...Who would we play against?’. By they she meant Spain and them taking revenge on Barça and Catalan teams by not letting them play down the park at the weekend, and yes, in a debate mostly about independence this was the second time the question was asked about whether or not Barça could continue playing in la Liga.
The current head coach for the part-time team is no other than non-Catalan speaking Johan Cruyff, whose son Jordi played nine times for Catalunya. He took over last year and in his own arm-around-the-shoulder manner told Catalans, before the game against Argentina, that it would be lamentable and shameful if the stadium didn’t sell out. It didn’t, but not a word was said after a game that Catalunya won 4-2. As mentioned earlier this year’s opponents were Honduras and after the four-nil win Cruyff said ‘we should be really proud of the youngsters because they behaved and played like veterans and have given more than everything’. He didn’t mention the half-filled Montjuïc Olympic Stadium and the masses that had stayed away from the game. There was just over 28,000 in the stadium although he did say ‘we hope people come and it’s obvious that we’re getting better at attracting people to the games, that we’re winning the confidence of a nation that wants to be proud of its country and enjoy its football.’, he did fail to add which nation that was.
There was more fall out afterwards as Espanyol coach Mauricio Pochettino publically declared that Cruyff had not stuck to the agreement that his players would only play forty-five minutes. Whether that was to do with the injuries to Piqué and Puyol just before the game we don’t know, but whatever the reason and whatever the status to Catalonia as a country, nationalism hasn’t yet been transferred into national support.
Article by
Raül Pope Fargüell for Forza Futbol
La Liga News 24/7
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