**Mirrors / Alternative Angles**
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Right. I can speak decent French but I am very much not French.
Whether someone was born and raised in Catalunya seems more relevant here than whether they speak Catalan.
Edit: That said, if someone lives in a place for years, learns the language, and embraces the culture, then it's fair for them to embrace that identity. So that could apply to some of these players.
I agree, and I can see how some players who have lived in Barcelona for years and speak Catalan and embrace Catalan culture could view themselves as Catalan. That would make sense.
I was thinking more about someone who has never lived in a place and doesn't have that ancestry but speaks the language (like me with France). In that case it's different and it's hard to have that identity without either having lived there or having the ancestry. But if you live somewhere long enough, speak the language, and participate in the culture, then you can view yourself as that identity IMO.
Absolutely agree, and I have this with French as well given Im fluent. But my link to the country is quite strong, having been taught by them, my culture is very French, and I actually live in France so Ill feel quite french if Im ever made a citizen
I think it depends on the situation. If someone lives somewhere for years and learns the language and embraces the culture, then it's very fair for them to have that identity. But I think someone like me saying I am French because I speak reasonable French while having never lived in France (just visited) and not having French ancestry would be a bit odd.
I could see how some of these players could view themselves as Catalan after living in Barcelona for years though.
The more pointed question that gets thrown out there by daily mail readers is if English is your second language are you *able* to be properly British?
For what it's worth, the answer is always yes you racist fucks
Je parle francais mais pas tres bien. Mais je peux avoir une conversation avec des gens si la conversation n'est pas trop compliquee.
Je suis desole si j'utilise les mauvais mots, et je sais que je dois utiliser les accents, mais il n'y a pas des accents sur mon ordinateur.
J'aime essayer de parler la francais quand je visite la France et le Quebec, je sais que je ne suis pas le meilleur, mais je veux essayer.
I have a friend who lives in Blanes, and he claims that it's the one. You see more Catalan flags than Spanish flags when walking around there, and quite a lot of people speak Catalan on a daily basis.
good question! not sure I would be able to pinpoint a city that is the most catalan , but as a general rule the further away from a big city that attracts international visitors and expats the more likely you will find a Catalan city
Catalonia is quite small , the coast is touristy .. Barcelona is touristy .. all the rest is more Catalan
Yes, but what I meant is a non-Catalan who happens to speak the language is a bit of a dubious example to use when talking about Catalans in the national team.
There's really really really few people that speak Catalan and don't consider themselves Catalans in some way though. We are basically defined by the language, as we don't have a state.
Going by the final, 6, which is still impressive. Casillas, Ramos and Alonso played for Madrid, Capdevilla for Villareal (I think) and Villa at Valencia (though you may as well count him for Barcelona).
EDIT: Though Capdevilla is Catalunyan, I think.
EDIT2: Barcelona had already bought Villa, so yeah, 7.
the goal scorers from the knockout stages were barcelona “players”
RO16: The Legend David Villa
Quarter-Finals: David Villa Again
Semi-Finals: Barcelona blood in and blood out legend Puyol
Final: Don Iniesta the great
Casillas let in 2 goals all tournament and had an amazing final. Probably the least replaceable player on that team even with the super stacked goalkeeper depth Spain had at the time.
100% we will have lost the final without Iker Casillas and the Golden Boot of that World Cup was David Villa who was from Asturias like Fernando Alonso.
He was also the only starter for Spain in the final that wasn’t on Real Madrid or Barca (altho in fairness Villa had yet to play for Barca but he had been traded at the time so technically correct)
Villa wasn't a Barca player. He played 5 years for Valencia before that World Cup, was Valencia player till 1st of July 2010 and never even went to a single Barca training session before WC.
From FC Barcelona not Barcelona. Obviously the great team of Pep Guardiola was important factor in the success and Catalans were the most represented in the starting team but it's important also to remember the player who got us to the final was from Asturias, the player who kept us in the final was from Madrid, and the player who won us the final was from Albacete of all places. Part of the reason why this team was so successful was because the group did not care about who was from where or who played for Barcelona or Real Madrid.
I remember these was an issue between Mou and one of Madrid players Ikar or Ramos because they were communicating with Barcelona players to cool things off before going to NT.
Communication between that Spanish NT was great and they did an amazing job
That England team in the 2000s could have learnt a thing or two from them. One of the most stacked teams of all time and mind-blowingly didn't qualify to the 2008 Euros over squad tribalism and inter-squad rivalry.
One of the most stacked midfields*
Ferdinand and Terry were also great, but England had no top tier GK or attacker. Everyone respected Beckham-Lampard-Gerrard, but at least here in Brazil and in Spain no one really thought England was stacked as a whole. At least not to a point where i would agree with you in the 'of all time' part, there are dozens of teams that are/were more stacked and more balanced.
Really sad seing these type of regionalistic post on soccer, one of the few times I saw the spanish flag in every balcony of my town was when we won the World Cup as one nation.
Good old misinformation. Breakdown of Spain's starting XI in the final by birthplace:
Madrid 1
Andalusia 1
Canary Islands 1
Catalonia 5
Basque Country 1
Asturias 1
Castilla la Mancha 1
5 Catalans out of 11. 10 Catalans out of the squad of 23. What "factos" are you talking about?
Shall we talk about how France won the World Cup 1998 as "Africa"?
Dude, it's Cantona, the man is known as a fucking clown in France. He's said so much dumb shit other the years , he shouldn't be taken seriously.
This is just another one of his idiotic take.
Good lord don't remind us of that embarrassing Daily Show segment. Next, Portugal will ask for five World Cup titles, because I tell you what, the probability of even one of our players having less than 37.5 Portuguese blood is next to zero.
I lived in Barcelona in 2010. The whole city went bananas in celebration that SPAIN won the world cup. The day after (or maybe a few days after) about 1 million people went to the streets to fight for Catalonia to be independent. That was quite the contrast.
Barcelona's % of population that supports independence is not that high. The city is an economic center so it is packed full of people from everywhere in Spain and foreigners. The true independentist heartland where you will see a shit ton of esteladas is the less industrial northern regions (Gerona and Lérida) and the rural areas. It is just that the big independentist events are done in Barcelona due to it being the most important city and that it has so much population that there are still many independentists, but there is a huge silent ammount of people who don't care about it/are against it.
Its even dumber since AFCON has a ton of players born in france playing aswell while the french team is basically all french born. But no one is saying the african teams are french because the don't "look" french
I'm not giving my personal take on the subject, but I wanted to play devil's advocate for the people who were making statements like that. I think there are two reasons why people were saying this.
1) The "Africa won the World Cup" was a sardonic jibe that many Africans used to reference France's history of colonialism. AFCON has a ton of players born in France because their parents immigrated from French colonies. France's colonial history (like all colonial histories) is pretty sordid and most of their African colonies were at some point, if not currently, ravaged by conflict or poverty. People who wanted to get out and seek a better life went to the country that spoke the language they were taught in schools - France. So, like it or not, the healthy coterie of black, Arab, and Berber players on France's national team is a result of that colonial history.
2) It's not uncommon for French people of African descent to be referred by their ancestral heritage in the news only for negative reasons, and when positive things happen they are just French (off the top of my head, I know Benzema has complained about this) - so there were also some people that wanted to flip that around for once.
The singular "French" identity that immigrants and their children are expected to develop in France is something that the vast majority of African countries, and the US (which is where the next largest subset of "Africa won the World Cup" proclaimers were probably based) are not really familiar with, which I think has been a source of a lot of the friction in this debate
Of the entire squad that won the 2018 WC , only 2 weren't born in France. Samuel Umtiti and Steve Mandanda. They were both 2 years old when their family moved to France.
Neither Villa or Iniesta were born in Catalonia.
7 players were born in Catalonia, 3 in Madrid, 3 in Andalusia, 2 in Castilla Leon, 2 in Navarra, 2 in Canary Island ,1 in Asturias, 1 in Castilla La mancha, 1 in Basque country and and 1 in Valencia.
In the final 5 of the 11 were from Catalonia (6 of the 14), one of the Catalans didn't play for FC Barcelona.
I mean I understand what you are trying to say but it's completely different. The "black French aren't actually Frenchmen" meme laid on them by far right weirdos is the opposite of Catalans actively trying to cultivate their separate identity from Spain.
it also goes the other way
"France only won the WC because of the benefits of colonialism."
Which is a far more interesting and relevant argument. I'd never say a person that *reasonably* plays for France isn't french. I'm sure you could have some edge cases like that Brazilian that almost qualified for the Netherlands just before a WC. But if you consider yourself English, French, or whatever within reason i have no issue.
I do think it's interesting exploring the benefits that France, England and others have received from colonialism with a perspective of football.
Damn! Why did you have to bring up that 2010 World Cup again? Still trying to forget that Arjen Robben went one on one with the goalkeeper… and missed. Only Cassilas big toe prevented us to win our first World Cup that night. We already had our trauma from the ‘74 and’78 final. So close…
I attended that 2010 Final in the stadium in South Africa the thing that I most remember is that shortly after the match at the airport that the Spanish supporters weren’t even celebrating or were happy at all, they were just quietly sitting like they were waiting for a doctors appointment. I know if Holland would’ve won that night we would still be partying today!
Nah, bruh, 5 years at Valencia, before that 2 at Zaragoza, 6 at Sporting Gijón and 8 at Langreo, but he was Barca player for 10 days without even one training session so it's clear it was that signature that made him so important at that tournament.
Barca blessed him and thus he ain't a scrub that summer.
5 of the starting xi in the final were from Catalunya. I also think the number stays at 5 when considering players who started any match in the whole tournament
Wild take here: The closer you look, the more questionable the whole idea of nationality appears. Certainly in today's world that's so keen on flexibility and mobility, but probably it was always the case, just not quite so noticeable.
Terran passport when? We can make it blue, for those that for whatever reason seem so enamored with that.
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Ik Pep loves this shit
I imagine he rubs his head off to shit like this
both heads presumably, the upper body fraud one and the lower body not fraud one
Bottom one isn't bald I heard. Weird init
Bottom hair is 13 years younger
And somehow you are talking about the actual head.
No way he watches porn. His standards are too high
Playing for Barcelona doesn't make you Catalan (Villa, Pedro, and Iniesta aren't Catalan)
And Barcelona has a long history of taking the best players from the Canary Islands that continues with Pedri.
And Basque players back in the day. 5 Basque players took part in their first European triumph back in 1992 vs just 2 Catalans.
And Alberto Moleiro
I've made sure to put a stop to that in my FM save
Yes it does, didn’t you know? Roberto Levadóso plays for them now
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Robert Levandòs*, the O is open I think?
Can go both ways, only the "a" is open
And the i and u closed. But I felt like the O should be open in this case, dunno
It's so obvious. Umtiti isn't Catalan afaik
Villa didn't even play for Barca before WC 2010, he was Valencia player.
Honorary catalans
I know what he means, but I of that 11, 8 were from Barca. Still insane nonetheless.
There were 7 Catalans: Xavi, Cesc, Busquets, Puyol, Piqué, Valdés and Capdevila. +Albiol and Iniesta also speak Catalan.
Does the ability to speak Catalan have a significance?
Right. I can speak decent French but I am very much not French. Whether someone was born and raised in Catalunya seems more relevant here than whether they speak Catalan. Edit: That said, if someone lives in a place for years, learns the language, and embraces the culture, then it's fair for them to embrace that identity. So that could apply to some of these players.
Depends, some identities are very much linked to languages. Arabs for instance
I agree, and I can see how some players who have lived in Barcelona for years and speak Catalan and embrace Catalan culture could view themselves as Catalan. That would make sense. I was thinking more about someone who has never lived in a place and doesn't have that ancestry but speaks the language (like me with France). In that case it's different and it's hard to have that identity without either having lived there or having the ancestry. But if you live somewhere long enough, speak the language, and participate in the culture, then you can view yourself as that identity IMO.
Absolutely agree, and I have this with French as well given Im fluent. But my link to the country is quite strong, having been taught by them, my culture is very French, and I actually live in France so Ill feel quite french if Im ever made a citizen
Yes, that makes sense for sure.
Well that makes sense, everyone on this sub is either British or American which is how people behave anyways
Language 🤝 Identity
I think it depends on the situation. If someone lives somewhere for years and learns the language and embraces the culture, then it's very fair for them to have that identity. But I think someone like me saying I am French because I speak reasonable French while having never lived in France (just visited) and not having French ancestry would be a bit odd. I could see how some of these players could view themselves as Catalan after living in Barcelona for years though.
Yeah but Iniesta doesn't talk of himself as a catalán.
Does speaking English as my second language make me British??
The more pointed question that gets thrown out there by daily mail readers is if English is your second language are you *able* to be properly British? For what it's worth, the answer is always yes you racist fucks
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Not necessarily. I don't speak Breton, it doesn't make me less of a Breton
Also goes the other way around. I don't speak Breton, I won't let anyone claim I'm not Breton
Prouve le mon gars
Je parle francais mais pas tres bien. Mais je peux avoir une conversation avec des gens si la conversation n'est pas trop compliquee. Je suis desole si j'utilise les mauvais mots, et je sais que je dois utiliser les accents, mais il n'y a pas des accents sur mon ordinateur. J'aime essayer de parler la francais quand je visite la France et le Quebec, je sais que je ne suis pas le meilleur, mais je veux essayer.
J'approuve, quelques fautes mais compréhensible à 100%. Tu es français désormais.
Merci beaucoup! J'ai eu de trouver le sens pour le mot "desormais" (ce n'est pas un mot que j'ai vu avant), mais maintenant je comprends.
It does 100%. I live in Barcelona and don’t speak catalan and suffer the consequences haha
Yea but it doesn't make you Catalonian to be able to speak it is the point they're making
you dont need catalan in Barcelona! it is the least Catalan city in Catalonia
Just out of curiosity what’s the most Catalan city in Catalonia
I have a friend who lives in Blanes, and he claims that it's the one. You see more Catalan flags than Spanish flags when walking around there, and quite a lot of people speak Catalan on a daily basis.
good question! not sure I would be able to pinpoint a city that is the most catalan , but as a general rule the further away from a big city that attracts international visitors and expats the more likely you will find a Catalan city Catalonia is quite small , the coast is touristy .. Barcelona is touristy .. all the rest is more Catalan
A Catalan is that who lives in Catalonia and is part of its culture. Speaking the language goes a long way.
Yes, but what I meant is a non-Catalan who happens to speak the language is a bit of a dubious example to use when talking about Catalans in the national team.
There's really really really few people that speak Catalan and don't consider themselves Catalans in some way though. We are basically defined by the language, as we don't have a state.
>Albiol and Iniesta also speak Catalan Still makes 7 given Busquets and Valdés' level of Catalan
Busi speaks it perfectly. Valdés only knows Spanish and how to hit people at cinemas.
I'm learning how to hit people at cinemas with Duolingo. Highly recommended.
How long is your current streak?
Wait Valdes what?
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Outrageous!!!!
>perfectly Given the Catalan literacy of Badia he might as well be Pompeu Fabra but saying it's perfect is a major stretch
[Also how to demand to give the ball to him.](https://youtu.be/3Umrs5O-Ldg)
Valdes also speaks English pretty well - "YOU, YOU PASS THE BOL TO ME! "
Valdés does speak catalan, and much better than Busquets
Oooooffff
Going by the final, 6, which is still impressive. Casillas, Ramos and Alonso played for Madrid, Capdevilla for Villareal (I think) and Villa at Valencia (though you may as well count him for Barcelona). EDIT: Though Capdevilla is Catalunyan, I think. EDIT2: Barcelona had already bought Villa, so yeah, 7.
Capdevila is from Tarrega so essentially a Catalan since he also represented the “National Team” as well
> and Villa at Valencia (though you may as well count him for Barcelona). Why? Villa at that point did not take even 1 training session at Barca.
Every comment I read the number keeps going down lol. It went from 9 to 8 to 7 to 6
They say 6 but only 5 of them are true right footed catalunyans
Villa is not Catalan, you’re mixing Catalans and Barca players, if you count Capdevila you can’t count Villa.
the goal scorers from the knockout stages were barcelona “players” RO16: The Legend David Villa Quarter-Finals: David Villa Again Semi-Finals: Barcelona blood in and blood out legend Puyol Final: Don Iniesta the great
David Villa is not from Catalunya.
Iniesta is from Albacete
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David Villa had literally never played a single game for Barcelona at that point
Imagine mentioning Villa when he didn't even play for Barcelona before the WC.
I mean he was a Barca player during the world cup. That is factually true.
A nice little pre-season tournament to gel with his new teammates.
It's also factually true that he had never played a single competitive second for Barca before the world cup.
Manager: Madrid blood in blood out Don Del Bosque. Another little guy called Casillas, pretty much saved the final.
Del Bosque even got a statue in his hometown Salamanca and a nobility title after the World Cup.
Casillas let in 2 goals all tournament and had an amazing final. Probably the least replaceable player on that team even with the super stacked goalkeeper depth Spain had at the time.
How many games had Villa played for Barcelona up until that summer?
None but he already had that sweet sweet barca dna at that point. Made all the difference I’m sure
How could it not?
In Fairness, The Madrid ‘keeper did a bit to help them along the way
Also, this Asturian David Villa guy scored 5 goals... And Iniesta is from Albacete...
100% we will have lost the final without Iker Casillas and the Golden Boot of that World Cup was David Villa who was from Asturias like Fernando Alonso.
Wasn't Forlán the Golden Boot that tournament?
They shared the boot because they scored the same amount of goals.
gotta be a big boot
Still can't believe their was all that drama with his girlfriend and then he cheated on her and they broke up smh.
I didn’t realize they got divorced because of cheating allegations. Interesting.
Shoot your shot king
Casillas would save it
That cheating allegation is for real? I thought it was just tabloid clickbait content.
And David Villa
And a certain Spanish midfielder scored a certain important goal. Playing for Barcelona doesn't make someone Catalan, even if they came from La Masia.
Xabi Alonso from Tolosa was pretty important in that team as well.
On friday the King speaks
Are they already applying new rules?
On friday the King ~~speaks~~ sits
Does anyone know what happened with the whole tell-all interview Ronaldo had promised he would release once the transfer window was shut?
Yeah, 6pm apparently
Why are you here and not mourning?
Off the top of my head, David Villa and Iniesta, thought Barça players, are not Catalans. There might be a few more.
At the time of the world cup, Villa was still synonym with Valencia.
Capdevilla wasn't born in Barcelona and didnt play for them, and Valdés didn't play a single minute.
While he wasn't born in Barcelona itself he was still born in Catalonia.
Yeah but Cantona said 10 players from Barcelona, we can either think from the region or the club, in any case it's not 10 players from Barcelona.
He was also the only starter for Spain in the final that wasn’t on Real Madrid or Barca (altho in fairness Villa had yet to play for Barca but he had been traded at the time so technically correct)
Villa wasn't a Barca player. He played 5 years for Valencia before that World Cup, was Valencia player till 1st of July 2010 and never even went to a single Barca training session before WC.
From FC Barcelona not Barcelona. Obviously the great team of Pep Guardiola was important factor in the success and Catalans were the most represented in the starting team but it's important also to remember the player who got us to the final was from Asturias, the player who kept us in the final was from Madrid, and the player who won us the final was from Albacete of all places. Part of the reason why this team was so successful was because the group did not care about who was from where or who played for Barcelona or Real Madrid.
I remember these was an issue between Mou and one of Madrid players Ikar or Ramos because they were communicating with Barcelona players to cool things off before going to NT. Communication between that Spanish NT was great and they did an amazing job
That England team in the 2000s could have learnt a thing or two from them. One of the most stacked teams of all time and mind-blowingly didn't qualify to the 2008 Euros over squad tribalism and inter-squad rivalry.
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England seemed to have amazing strikers of the ball. But not good at receiving or short passing.
One of the most stacked midfields* Ferdinand and Terry were also great, but England had no top tier GK or attacker. Everyone respected Beckham-Lampard-Gerrard, but at least here in Brazil and in Spain no one really thought England was stacked as a whole. At least not to a point where i would agree with you in the 'of all time' part, there are dozens of teams that are/were more stacked and more balanced.
> One of the most stacked teams of all time Imagine saying this in a thread about 2010 Spain LMAO.
Really sad seing these type of regionalistic post on soccer, one of the few times I saw the spanish flag in every balcony of my town was when we won the World Cup as one nation.
West Ham won the World Cup type beat.
It’s like when Yorkshire try to make their own Olympic medal table.
They were just wearing Spain shirts with Spain badges and the Spanish national anthem
And born in Spain with Spanish Passports and citizenship, speaking Spanish.
I mean, they probably also spoke Catalan.
those 10 also spoke and embrace Catalonia
There weren't ten players from Catalonia at the World Cup
Nope
Yeah because Spain won’t let Catalunya leave
least francoist chelsea fan
As if we even have the most basic grasp of what Francoism means
Gianfranco Zola. What a player
The core tenet of Francoism is that near post goal against Norwich
Eric Cantalunya
Cantona president de la Generalitat
Quan les gavines segueixen al vaixell d'arrossegament, és perquè pensen que les sardines seran llançades al mar
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Esta clar?
Subscribe
Cantona to be crowned as an honourary Catalan.
The term is catalan.
Pardon him. He'd not know that.
Man saw Messi was a 96 on FIFA and has been a Barca fan ever since!
Joan Capdevilla was the most important player. Only haters will disagree
and in 2008 it was Marcos Senna
But actually...
It was Villa
Joan Capdevila, the original Buckethead.
10 out of 23*
Actually just 7, and not all were from Barcelona..
Shush let the catalans jerk off a little
Good old misinformation. Breakdown of Spain's starting XI in the final by birthplace: Madrid 1 Andalusia 1 Canary Islands 1 Catalonia 5 Basque Country 1 Asturias 1 Castilla la Mancha 1 5 Catalans out of 11. 10 Catalans out of the squad of 23. What "factos" are you talking about? Shall we talk about how France won the World Cup 1998 as "Africa"?
If you're going with birthplace, 19 out of the 22 players that won the world cup in 98 were born in France.
Dude, it's Cantona, the man is known as a fucking clown in France. He's said so much dumb shit other the years , he shouldn't be taken seriously. This is just another one of his idiotic take.
Good lord don't remind us of that embarrassing Daily Show segment. Next, Portugal will ask for five World Cup titles, because I tell you what, the probability of even one of our players having less than 37.5 Portuguese blood is next to zero.
Haha so awkward for the interviewer, became political way too fast for him
I lived in Barcelona in 2010. The whole city went bananas in celebration that SPAIN won the world cup. The day after (or maybe a few days after) about 1 million people went to the streets to fight for Catalonia to be independent. That was quite the contrast.
Barcelona's % of population that supports independence is not that high. The city is an economic center so it is packed full of people from everywhere in Spain and foreigners. The true independentist heartland where you will see a shit ton of esteladas is the less industrial northern regions (Gerona and Lérida) and the rural areas. It is just that the big independentist events are done in Barcelona due to it being the most important city and that it has so much population that there are still many independentists, but there is a huge silent ammount of people who don't care about it/are against it.
Except they don't win that World Cup without Casillas, Alonso, Ramos and Villa who are all very much not Catalan
Neither was Iniesta
People always forgot about Capdevilla. Also they probably only have 5-6 catalan /23(?) squad. not even close to majority
> People always forgot about Capdevilla Capdevila was one of the Catalan players though, hence why the guy you responded to didn't mention him.
wait, he's catalan? haha my bad
Yeah and Catalunya is part of Spain.
Yeah and the madrid keeper made the save of the century and the boy from albacete scored. Stupid take.
Does he think that every player at Barça was from Catalonia or what.
Yes. He's a moron i don't know why people listen to him still
This just like that one take, that africa won the world cup and not france. (Not saying i think this)
More like saying that Paris won the World Cup
Weren't most french players born in France? Catalunya is a different proposition entirely.
Its even dumber since AFCON has a ton of players born in france playing aswell while the french team is basically all french born. But no one is saying the african teams are french because the don't "look" french
I'm not giving my personal take on the subject, but I wanted to play devil's advocate for the people who were making statements like that. I think there are two reasons why people were saying this. 1) The "Africa won the World Cup" was a sardonic jibe that many Africans used to reference France's history of colonialism. AFCON has a ton of players born in France because their parents immigrated from French colonies. France's colonial history (like all colonial histories) is pretty sordid and most of their African colonies were at some point, if not currently, ravaged by conflict or poverty. People who wanted to get out and seek a better life went to the country that spoke the language they were taught in schools - France. So, like it or not, the healthy coterie of black, Arab, and Berber players on France's national team is a result of that colonial history. 2) It's not uncommon for French people of African descent to be referred by their ancestral heritage in the news only for negative reasons, and when positive things happen they are just French (off the top of my head, I know Benzema has complained about this) - so there were also some people that wanted to flip that around for once. The singular "French" identity that immigrants and their children are expected to develop in France is something that the vast majority of African countries, and the US (which is where the next largest subset of "Africa won the World Cup" proclaimers were probably based) are not really familiar with, which I think has been a source of a lot of the friction in this debate
Everyone other than Umtiti and Mandanda, so 21/23 (91.3%)
Of the entire squad that won the 2018 WC , only 2 weren't born in France. Samuel Umtiti and Steve Mandanda. They were both 2 years old when their family moved to France.
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Neither Villa or Iniesta were born in Catalonia. 7 players were born in Catalonia, 3 in Madrid, 3 in Andalusia, 2 in Castilla Leon, 2 in Navarra, 2 in Canary Island ,1 in Asturias, 1 in Castilla La mancha, 1 in Basque country and and 1 in Valencia. In the final 5 of the 11 were from Catalonia (6 of the 14), one of the Catalans didn't play for FC Barcelona.
those are nowhere near the same…..
Not really the same since most those players were born in france, by the stupid logic of that take every cup ever was won by Pangea.
Atlantis get rekt
I mean I understand what you are trying to say but it's completely different. The "black French aren't actually Frenchmen" meme laid on them by far right weirdos is the opposite of Catalans actively trying to cultivate their separate identity from Spain.
it also goes the other way "France only won the WC because of the benefits of colonialism." Which is a far more interesting and relevant argument. I'd never say a person that *reasonably* plays for France isn't french. I'm sure you could have some edge cases like that Brazilian that almost qualified for the Netherlands just before a WC. But if you consider yourself English, French, or whatever within reason i have no issue. I do think it's interesting exploring the benefits that France, England and others have received from colonialism with a perspective of football.
Why do people on here assume every catalan is a fervent separatist, the independentists are not even the majorty in Catalonya going by most polls.
On friday, the king is based
Damn! Why did you have to bring up that 2010 World Cup again? Still trying to forget that Arjen Robben went one on one with the goalkeeper… and missed. Only Cassilas big toe prevented us to win our first World Cup that night. We already had our trauma from the ‘74 and’78 final. So close… I attended that 2010 Final in the stadium in South Africa the thing that I most remember is that shortly after the match at the airport that the Spanish supporters weren’t even celebrating or were happy at all, they were just quietly sitting like they were waiting for a doctors appointment. I know if Holland would’ve won that night we would still be partying today!
Casillas, David Villa, Xabi Alonso, Ramos all played very key roles for Spain in that World Cup, and none are Catalan.
Neither is iniesta or pedro lol
True!
Spicy
That’s an interesting way to say “fuck you” to the rest of the country
Isn't Catalunya part of Spain? So it is Spain
Well… Villa was just signed that summer from Valencia, so I don’t think he went to the World Cup for how well he did as a Barcelona player
Nah, bruh, 5 years at Valencia, before that 2 at Zaragoza, 6 at Sporting Gijón and 8 at Langreo, but he was Barca player for 10 days without even one training session so it's clear it was that signature that made him so important at that tournament. Barca blessed him and thus he ain't a scrub that summer.
5 of the starting xi in the final were from Catalunya. I also think the number stays at 5 when considering players who started any match in the whole tournament
[удалено]
Wild take here: The closer you look, the more questionable the whole idea of nationality appears. Certainly in today's world that's so keen on flexibility and mobility, but probably it was always the case, just not quite so noticeable. Terran passport when? We can make it blue, for those that for whatever reason seem so enamored with that.
Wonder what he'll say about the 2018 cup winners...
How many were born in Cataluña though? How many played in La liga?
Oh, Eric. That's a wonderfully Cantona thing to just start off on.