Mes que un joc?

Please forgive the liberal titling in a language (Catalá) I can't speak, but those in the footballing know, however, will catch the point, and perhaps even the meek pun. The "beautiful game" is certainly més que un joc - more than a game. And in Iberia, where certain football clubs like FC Barcelona aspire to be més que un club, football routinely outsteps the pitch. Last weekend, as the Spanish national team blundered to defeat at the feet of Sweden, the unofficial "national" teams of Catalunya and Euskal Herria (Basque Country) played each other at Barcelona's Camp Nou in their first meeting in 25 years.

The match result (a 2-2 draw) was always secondary to the game's political endeavour. Like the would-be nations they represent, the selecciones Catalunya and Euskadi have long sought autonomy from the Spanish team, aspiring to - at the very least - a system of representation akin to that at work in the UK (where Wales, Scotland and co. play separately from "England" in a number of sports).

Football and politcs leak into each other till they become inseparable. In the boisterous stands, Pasqual Margall, president of the Catalunyan Generalitat, sat side-by-side with the Basque lehendakari, Juan José Ibarretxe. Nearly sixty thousand Basque and Catalan supporters crowded the stadium, brandishing their respective colours. The message was clear: partisans of the two most strident "sub"-nationalist peoples in the country bit their thumbs at tattered Spanish nationhood, whose representatives had just limped back from humiliation in Stockholm.

The match stoked the ire of Spain's madridistas and rightists, including top-ranking officials in el Partido Popular. The main television channel TVE1 and sports daily Marca refused to even mention the match. Such snubs will likely be interepreted as signs of success in Barcelona and Bilbao; the Castillian establishment is hurting.

Will a push towards separate Catalan and Basque football teams lead to other, more substantive separations? Perhaps. But as some commentators suggest, greater autonomy in football may siphon away nationalist energy and sap, in the long run, aspirations for real political autonomy.

(Image courtesy Gergraphic)