Football and Politics.

Football Club Barcelona is one of the most succesful clubs in Europe. Its history is full of trophies and thanks to its most recent results it is considered the best club in Europe at the moment.
For Catalonia it is a symbol. It represents pro-immigration, charity, liberal politics and all in all Catalonia and Catalan values. It's "More than a Club". In the civil war and during the repression, Barca's rival, Madrid, was given more money and open support from the dictator. Thus Barca became a symbol of the counter-culture, much like Athletic Club Bilbao in the Basque Country. The stadium was also a place where people could speak Catalan without repurcussions. Barcelona is now one of Catalonia's best international symbols.Spain have hated it with a passion since the 50's.

Due to the air-traffic controllers sick en masse the other day [of which I may have to talk more about because there seems to be hidden info], Barca were almost left without playing. They have the tradition of leavin g on the day if they are going to go by plane and the day before if they take the bus. So the night of the strike they were talking with the Spanish Football Federation about what they should do, and the federation told them that the game would be played on Sunday instead of Saturday. So Barca's plan was to leave on Saturday at around 5 by coach, as the planes were still down. Barca ofcourse taped the conversations but it seems the federation never told Osasuna what was happening, so officially the game was still on. At 3 on Saturday the federation called Barca saying that they had to be at Pamplona at 7 or they would automatically lose three points. Three points which would go well for Madrid, who are starting to fall behind. Anyhow, the players had to rush onto a train and then take a coach. The trip normally takes 4 and a half hours, so there was no way barca was going to arrive on time. Barca arrived at 8.30 and the game had to start at 9. The crowd was angry, Osasuna was angry and Barca was very angry. Barca won, things like these are only minor incidents when you are the best team in the world. Osasuna didn;t stand a chance, but they were very good to wait for barca, because if they hadn't Catalonia would be independant today. Barcelona is politics. Catalan, national, pro-independance politics. As the Barca coach said, Barcelona is in a separate country, up north-east on the maps of the peninsula, we don't arrange times but we are forced to accept them. They treat us as if we are separate, yet abhor the thought of actually becoming independant. The team almost lost three points, which would have allowed the military to move from the aeroports to Catalonia, trash the place and not help it rebuild again. History may never repeat in some places, but in others history is like a car cassette, which is just played again and again and again, until the tape starts to burn.