{"id":552749,"date":"2026-07-16T13:41:14","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T13:41:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/552749\/"},"modified":"2026-07-16T13:41:14","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T13:41:14","slug":"why-catalans-and-basques-will-be-watching-the-world-cup-final-out-of-the-corner-of-their-eye-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/552749\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Catalans and Basques will be watching the World Cup final out of the corner of their eye \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Tuesday, Spain<\/a> swept past tournament favourites France in Dallas, 2-0, to reach the World Cup<\/a> final against Argentina. Spain could easily have won by more. The following day, a headline in Marca, Spain\u2019s biggest selling sports paper, put the knife in, asking: \u201cHow do you say, \u2018a thrashing\u2019 in French?\u201d<\/p>\n

Midway through the first half, Lamine Yamal<\/a>, who was born in Catalonia<\/a> 19 years ago, cleverly forced a penalty from France. His teammate, the Basque striker Mikel Oyarzabal, scored from the penalty spot, hammering the ball into the net like a man driving a nail into a plank of wood.<\/p>\n

On the hour mark, Dani Olmo, who was also born in Catalonia, provided the deftest of assists for Spain\u2019s second goal. Around Spain, there were delirious scenes of joy, as revellers celebrated in bars and plazas, festooned in the colours of La Roja, but not so much in the Basque Country or Catalonia.<\/p>\n

Before the match, Barcelona\u2019s City Council announced \u2013 perhaps with a gleeful tone \u2013 that it wouldn\u2019t be setting up any giant screens in public squares to show the game. The same spirit prevailed in Basque cities San Sebasti\u00e1n and Bilbao. Nothing like the fervour generated when, say, Athletic Bilbao won the Copa del Rey, Spain\u2019s cup competition, in 2024, when it packed out its stadium, San Mam\u00e9s, for fans watching the final on a big screen.<\/p>\n

Spain\u2019s march through the tournament triggers mixed emotions in the two regions, which both have long separatist histories; this despite the majority of Spain\u2019s World Cup squad hailing from either Catalonia in the country\u2019s northeast or the Basque Country in the northwest.<\/p>\n

Of Spain\u2019s starting XI against France, three are Basque \u2013 goalkeeper Unai Sim\u00f3n, Aymeric Laporte and Oyarzabal, who captains San Sebasti\u00e1n\u2019s team Real Sociedad; and four are Catalan \u2013 Yamal, Olmo, Pau Cubars\u00ed and Marc Cucurella.<\/p>\n

Several more squad players are Catalan \u2013 the illustrious back-up goalkeepers David Raya and Joan Garc\u00eda, along with Eric Garc\u00eda and V\u00edctor Mu\u00f1oz \u2013 and Basque, among them Martin Zubimendi, and Mikel Merino, a former team-mate of Zubimendi at Real Sociedad, grew up in the neighbouring province of Navarre.<\/p>\n

\"Catalonia-bornCatalonia-born Lamine Yamal in action during the 2026 World Cup semi-final against France. Photograph: by Mauro Pimentel\/AFP via Getty Images <\/p>\n

Nico Williams, Spain\u2019s star player in their Euro 2024 triumph, has struggled with fitness during the tournament. He plays with Athletic Bilbao, a club with a Basque-only policy. Team coach Luis de la Fuente was born in La Rioja, but he spent large chunks of his playing and coaching career with Athletic Bilbao.<\/p>\n

Spain\u2019s travelling party also includes Barcelona players Gavi, who joined the club\u2019s youth academy aged 11, Pedri, who signed for Bar\u00e7a as a 16-year-old, and Ferran Torres, who\u2019s been at the club since 2021.<\/p>\n

When de la Fuente announced his World Cup squad, including eight Bar\u00e7a players, the Barcelona-based sports newspaper Mundo Deportivo ran a smug \u201c8-0\u201d front-page headline, signalling that, for the first time in 17 World Cup finals in which Spain have qualified, it had no Real Madrid player<\/a>.<\/p>\n

On the morning of Spain\u2019s opening World Cup match against Cape Verde, however, Real Madrid announced that Cucurella, the team\u2019s feisty left back, had joined from Chelsea for a reported fee of \u20ac60 million, a hefty sum for a 27-year-old defender. But Real Madrid\u2019s president Florentino P\u00e9rez reckons it will be worth every penny, if some blushes are saved should Spain be crowned World Cup champions.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0\u2018Pummelled and incapable\u2019: French media react to World Cup semi-final defeat by SpainOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Spain\u2019s fortunes are important to Madridistas, but not to Basques, who are at best ambivalent. Santiago Abascal, leader of Vox, Spain\u2019s far-right political party, grew up in Bilbao in the 1980s. He has complained in interviews that, as a child, he was bullied at school for wearing the Spain national team jersey.<\/p>\n

When football took hold in Spain at the turn of the last century, the game thrived in particular in the Basque Country. Spain, for example, played its first international match in Bilbao in 1921 at the historic San Mam\u00e9s stadium. The Spain national team \u2013 unlike, say, with national teams in Ireland or Britain \u2013 rotates the venue for its home games in stadiums around the country. It hasn\u2019t played, though, in Bilbao since 1967.<\/p>\n

\"Spain'sSpain’s forward Mikel Oyarzabal celebrates scoring the first goal in the 2026 World Cup semi-final against France. Photograph: Franck Fife\/AFP via Getty Images <\/p>\n

During the fever of this summer\u2019s World Cup, and casting an eye forward to 2030 when Spain will co-host the tournament, Basque regional president Imanol Pradales was asked during a radio interview with national broadcaster RTVE if he\u2019d like Spain to play in the Basque Country.<\/p>\n

Pradales said Spain would be welcome to play in Bilbao\u2019s San Mam\u00e9s stadium, but only against the Basque Country. Football fans like Pradales would prefer if the Basque Football Federation could enter a team in international tournaments. Oyarzabal, Spain\u2019s top scorer in the World Cup, has played for the Basque national team.<\/p>\n

The Catalan Football Federation, which is 13 years older than the Royal Spanish Football Federation, also fields a national team that plays international friendlies, more than 200 over the last century or so, most recently against Palestine last November at Barcelona\u2019s Olympic Stadium. For several years, the team was managed by Bar\u00e7a\u2019s spiritual leader Johan Cruyff.<\/p>\n

Gerard Piqu\u00e9, a member of Spain\u2019s only World Cup-winning team in 2010, played 10 times for Catalonia. In 2014, he joined 1.8 million Catalans marching for independence on September 11th, \u201cLa Diada\u201d, Catalonia\u2019s national day.<\/p>\n

During the peaceful march, he tweeted a photo to his 9.4 million followers on social media, cradling his two-year-old son, who, incidentally, was wearing Bar\u00e7a\u2019s away strip that year, its four red bars against a yellow background a homage to the Catalan flag. Writing in Catalan, Piqu\u00e9 shared an exuberant message: \u201cI\u2019ve never experienced anything like it! Simply unforgettable! #Diada2014.\u201d<\/p>\n

A month later, he was in camp in Madrid with the Spain national team. A thousand fans trundled out to the team\u2019s training session to jeer Piqu\u00e9 for supporting Catalan separatism. During a press conference on the eve of Spain\u2019s forthcoming match, Piqu\u00e9 defended his position, explaining he supported Catalans\u2019 right to vote on self-determination and that, yes, he was a Catalan, but also that he was proud to represent Spain over the previous 11 years at underage and senior level.<\/p>\n

\"GerardGerard Piqu\u00e9, Carles Puyol and Xavi Hern\u00e1ndez played for Catalonia in a friendly match against Nigeria in 2013. Photograph: David Ramos\/Getty Images <\/p>\n

Piqu\u00e9\u2019s eloquent explanation resonated with people, capturing the duality a lot of Catalans feel \u2013 the silent majority, to borrow an expression. Although a Catalan football man like Pep Guardiola would have less nuanced feelings. He\u2019s more hardline, which is why \u2013 although he played for Spain \u2013 he would never manage the Spain national football team.<\/p>\n

Three years later, Catalan separatists staged an informal (or \u201cillegal\u201d) referendum on independence. Reserve police were bussed into Catalonia from around Spain, departing their villages like soldiers going to war, with cheers of \u201cGo get them!\u201d ringing in their ears. The day of the referendum, more than 800 people were injured by riot police. There were horrific scenes of female voters being dragged by the hair from polling stations.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Thomas Tuchel\u2019s all-time bottle job hands Argentina World Cup final placeOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Rather than forfeit a league match, Bar\u00e7a played visiting side Las Palmas later that afternoon behind closed doors at the Camp Nou stadium. Bar\u00e7a, which has the Catalan flag embroidered on its crest, won 3-0, but it was significant that Las Palmas had the Spanish flag stitched into their jerseys before kick-off out of solidarity with the rest of the country.<\/p>\n

Flags are potent symbols in Spain. It\u2019s why a lot of Basques and Catalans will baulk at the waving of Spanish flags around their cities and villages if Spain prevail in Sunday\u2019s World Cup final.<\/p>\n

World Cup Wallchart<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On Tuesday, Spain swept past tournament favourites France in Dallas, 2-0, to reach the World Cup final against…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":552750,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[81888,2956,61,60,4097,2846,230714,112,4018],"class_list":["post-552749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-catalonia","tag-fifa","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-lamine-yamal","tag-spain","tag-spain-football-team","tag-sports","tag-world-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=552749"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552749\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/552750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=552749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=552749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=552749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}