Catalan flags waved, a giant banner with the text "Freedom" was unfurled and from thousands of supporter hands stretched light blue placards with the text "Spain, sit and talk".

Anyone who says that sports and politics do not belong together must have completely missed Wednesday's Spanish meeting between football giants Barcelona and Real Madrid.

The match as such did not live up to expectations 0-0. The result means that Barcelona continues to top La Liga on better goal difference than Real.

Read more here: Pointless El Clásico

The excitement around the match was even greater. Already four hours before kick-off, hundreds of supporters of the Tsunami Democràtic group had gathered around the Camp Nou stadium. Demonstrators want to get a new referendum on Catalonia's independence and it is hoped that the great global interest in the match will help spread the message "Spain, sit and talk", which aims to have representatives of the Spanish government and Catalonia's separatists to talk to each other.

There were concerns that tensions would create new problems for the match - the grand meeting would have actually been decided as early as October but had to be postponed due to violent demonstrations around the region - but initially it looked like the evening would invite protests of the calmer kind .

At the end of the match, however, reports came that police had been hit with protesters outside the arena, and the first information said at least twelve people were injured.

The Catalan protests erupted in October after nine separatist leaders were sentenced to long prison sentences for, among other things, incarceration, in connection with the regional government's illegal referendum and declaration of independence in autumn 2017.

Politics was hot in a speechless El Clásico

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