To wander through the streets, the Sagrada Familia Nou Camp, even unavoidable Ramblas, difficult to imagine that this land of football is getting ready for Sunday night's first final of the World Cup. "Catalonia is here is complicated, relativizes Jordi. Nationalism is something very important for us and a common identity. Of course everybody is watching the national team, especially this year."
The daily ABC right as well try, thanks to a new photo showing a group of Spanish fans placed de Catalunya on Wednesday night to claim that "flags out of the closet." If they have done well after the semifinal, giving rise to celebrations across the city, so most have since returned to the bottom of the famous closet, waiting for better night. On Sunday, why not?
The paradox is glaring Catalan. There's no demonstration of commitment to the Spanish squad, the Roja, by conviction or fear of being called a traitor to the Catalan nation, or subservient to the center. Yet audience figures of the team of Spain in Catalonia are comparable to those of the rest of the peninsula's record!
In the final thanks to Barca
While in Madrid it displays the "bandera" (note: the flag), the red shirts walking around without stopping at any time of day and night, the streets of Barcelona, they are surprisingly discreet that way also . At 19 hours, on the Ramblas, at the Paseo, a few Spanish flags hanging from balconies and windows in any case far fewer than the Catalan banners and just one or two kids, with "camiseta roja" of Fernando Torres, in the middle of a huge crowd of tourists and Barcelona.
At upscale market Sant Josep, the heart of Las Ramblas, one stall is decorated in the colors of the selection: it is that of a French. Fabio has lived here for four years: "It's unbelievable, no? Nobody plays the game with seven players in the Barcelona team, nothing. I hope Spain will win Sunday and Barcelona will finally celebrate. "
Meanwhile, local newspapers, El Periodico de Catalunya, published in Castilian and Catalan, to La Vanguardia, more measured, we note that if Spain is where it is, it owes to the Catalans of Barcelona, Pep Guardiola and even Johan Cruyff. Autonomous end to the studs.
