The return of the national team to Catalonia 18 years later: "A generation has been lost"

• Spain national team remembers Spain: without world champions for the first time, but with an atmosphere similar to 2010

• Luis Enrique Bet on innovation, changes in the staff and a goodbye that seems close

«Despite the fact that I am autonomous, autonomist, peripheral, mestizo, charnego, in short, the most centrifugal ever and for ever, I surprised myself throwing corners in aid of

, or protecting the ball and cultivating the penalty as only He

knows how to do

or cutting the game like

or kneading the balls like

.

And I closed the television with my forehead beaded with cold sweat.

Would I be a patriot?

(

, July 18, 1990).

Manuel Vázquez Montalbán

, who wanted to see the unarmed army of Catalonia at Barça, found himself uneasy at his growing emotional involvement with the Spanish team before the 1990 World Cup in Italy. This is how

picks it up in the work

(Editorial Base).

Although the prolific intellectual from Barcelona backed down in the same article, assuming the weight of the contradiction: "People of the place, watch the World Cup matches, but try to keep critical distances [...], let us all resist the temptation to assume that the national football team are the Flanders Tercios».

When the Spanish team shows up in Cornellà this Saturday to play a friendly match against Albania, a blackout that has lasted 18 years, a month and eight days will come to an end.

The last time that the Spanish team played a match in Catalonia -also a friendly- was on February 18, 2004. They played in Montjuïc before 23,500 spectators, with the vast majority of Peruvian fans who came to see the South American team.

The Spain then trained by

won (2-1) in a day in which a section of the stands spent the night berating

.

That same day ETA had announced a truce only for the Catalan territory.

Carod, then

of the Generalitat, had met a month and a half earlier with the terrorist group in Perpignan.

football disconnection

Spain and Catalonia experienced a footballing disconnection during the

, but also long before.

While the Spanish team stopped playing in Catalonia, the presidents and government parties in the Generalitat succeeded each other: from the socialists

and

, through the converging

, who was the one who inaugurated the sovereignist process in 2012, until reaching to the pro-independence governments of

and

.

The selection now returns to a Catalonia presided over by the Republican

, who pays the wear and tear for the fracture of the independence movement.

«The problem is that a whole generation has been left without seeing the Spanish team in Catalonia.

It is a generation, in that sense, lost.

The speaker is

, a 27-year-old sustainable investment advisor who is part of Barcelona with the National Team.

Said association, which declares itself "apolitical", occupied the media space during the 2016 European Championship when a group of teenagers, led by the then Journalism student

, confronted the municipal government of Mayor

for the installation of a giant screen to watch the matches of Spain.

«That was our beginning and when we took the most sticks.

The City Council sanctioned us up to three times for the same act and we had to pay 14,000 euros.

We raised the money thanks to a crowdfunding campaign”, recalls Giral.

During the 2018 World Cup, the same 20-somethings went a step further, even achieving the collaboration of the City Council.

Even if they had to pay the rent for the Àliga field to install a screen to broadcast Spain-Portugal.

So they obtained the sponsorship of LaLiga and the Valdebebas district to cover a good part of the expenses.

“But we still needed Spain to play in Catalonia”, assumes Giral, who opens the plot range: “The political problem has never been the main one.

It could be a lien, but not the most important reason.

He is seconded by another historic member of the organization,

, a 33-year-old entrepreneur: «The political motivation could have been right from the beginning of the

in 2012. But when Spain won the European Championship in 2008 or the 2010 World Cup, with the streets from Barcelona to burst, that pull was not taken advantage of ».

And both focus on the previous management of

at the head of the Spanish Federation: «The choice of venues was then more opaque and closed than it is now.

It was impossible for us."

Alberto Giral and Manel Hernández are Espanyol fans.

Not so

, another member of the organization, a 28-year-old consultant.

“I am from Barça to death,” he warns.

And he specifies: “I go to the games with the Spanish flag.

And I never had any problems."

Those who did have them were

, also a Barça fan, and

, who shows her preferences for Madrid and Espanyol.

For years they have set up a tent in Barcelona to promote the Spanish team in Catalonia.

This cost them being attacked in 2016 by five individuals.

The Barcelona Court sentenced four of the aggressors to 32 months in prison, although the sentence is being appealed.

It is logical that the selection comes to Catalonia.

It should be something normal

“Even today there are still people who insult us.

For a few weeks, more.

Our tent has many flags from Spain.

And of course, they tell us everything, "explains Díaz, administrative.

“My family has told me many times to leave it,” intervenes Ortiz, a stewardess by profession, who abounds: “But we are not doing anything wrong.

It is logical that the selection comes to Catalonia.

It should be normal."

And Manel Hernández settles: «Defending the Spanish team in Catalonia is complicated».

Barcelona with the National Team has been preparing for the match against Albania for weeks.

Federation

has granted them the organization of an animation grandstand at the Cornellà-El Prat stadium, where they will display a tifo.

In addition, before the meeting, they promoted a caravan of vehicles from Plaza Artós in the upper area of ​​Barcelona to the stadium, where they will also be responsible for a Fan Zone next to the field with DJs and Catalan rumba.

"Our position does not go through fucking anyone," assures EL MUNDO

, coordinator of the pro-independence Assemblea Nacional Catalana (ANC) in Cornellà.

“We respect the feeling and the connection that a part of the population may have for one national team or another, nothing to say.

In the same way as if in Cornellà, instead of Spain, the selection of Venezuela, Morocco or China played.

It does not matter.

Cornellà is a mestizo and multicultural city.

Here everyone can play, "says Amatller.

"Lack of roots"

“But it is unacceptable for us to promote football matches in a State that does not recognize Catalonia as a nation.

We have been claiming the right to enjoy our own national team for more than a hundred years and the Spanish State refuses this recognition.

It is impossible to participate in this football match in any way when they deny you your identity," maintains the Cornellà ANC, which is seeking answers to the return of the national team after 18 years: "We see it more as a response from the Spanish State not so much to normalize relations between Catalonia and Spain, but as a show of strength and arrogance against Catalonia and against those of us who claim the right to have our own sports teams.

And Amatller ends: "The positive thing would be to make it easier for Catalonia to have its own team and we could find ourselves in a relationship between equals with all the teams in the world, including Spain."

Meanwhile, the Federation of Luis Rubiales works so that the presence of the Spanish team ceases to be an anomaly in Catalonia.

“My greatest wish is for it to normalize.

Let it be played in Barcelona as it is played in Andalusia, ”former international

, now a member of the presidency cabinet of the federative body, tells this newspaper.

Born in Terrassa and with his mobile phone full of requests to attend this Saturday's match in Cornellà, he himself played that match against Peru in Montjuïc 18 years ago.

"I don't understand how it hasn't come before," asks Luque, who concludes: "The national team always had a lot of support here.

I still remember the atmosphere at the Camp Nou in the final of the Barcelona '92 Olympic Games.

There is a lot of desire in Catalonia for the team to return.

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