Quote of the day

Walter Oppenheimer, a Catalan journalist with the Spanish daily El Pais:

Some Catalans hate the Spanish team, but most of them don't. Equally, some Catalans want independence but most of them don't. They might be ready to support it one day if necessary, but not yet, because they don't feel they need to be outside of Spain.

Most Catalans are Catalanists, which is something rather different from pro-independence: they love Catalonia more than they love Spain, but they don't hate Spain. The same happens with the Spanish team: they support the squad, but they are not prepared to put the Spanish team before Barca, for example. It has always been like that.

The last bit, about putting club before country, is something which is not confined to the devolved regions of Europe.