Can politics (though I hesitate to use the word) ‘succeed’ where football has failed?
I raise the question in the context of a referendum on independence that the President of Catalonia, the region around Barcelona, seems keen to hold in November 2014, less than two months after a similar vote in Scotland.
For the moment, it is far from sure this Catalonian referendum will even take place, or be seen as legally binding, let alone whether Cataláns will vote in favour of independence if given the opportunity to do so.
But if it does, and it is, and they do, imagine what a hole would be rent, as a consequence, in the fabric of one of the greatest international football squads ever assembled.
As I write this, La Roja, as the Spanish national football team is commonly called, are reigning world and European champions. In fact, they have won the last two European championships. They sit comfortably top of the FIFA rankings, where they have been since October 2011 and, intermittently, since July 2008. Last time I looked, their margin over Germany in second place was not far short of 200 points.
But Catalán players such as Xavi Hernández, Cesc Fábregas, Carles Puyol and Sergio Busquets have been at the absolute heart of this impressively extended spell of supreme international success. Remove them and others from the equation and it would be hard, surely, to see Spain’s Number One status long surviving their absence.
While politically I must admit I have some sympathy with the concept of an independent Catalonia, from a narrowly football-related perspective, you cannot contemplate the possibility of a great international outfit being broken apart like this without a sense of waste.
It is not so long ago that a supposed lack of empathy between Barcelona- and Madrid-based members of successive Spanish squads was one of the factors often put forward to explain the country’s chronic tendancy to underperform on the big stage. Now this theory has been relegated firmly to history, if not fantasy, and yet the footballing alchemy that overcame it so comprehensively might be destined for sacrifice on the altar of Catalán nationalism.
Not that I think a vote for independence in a future Catalonian referendum would result immediately and inevitably in the replacement of one world-beating squad with two mediocre ones. There is, after all, a significant body of evidence to suggest that newly-independent nations punch well above their weight in international football.
Exhibit number one is the former Yugoslavian state of Croatia, whose current players will have the honour of contesting the opening match of next year’s FIFA World Cup in Brazil against the host nation.
Made independent in 1991, the nation with the distinctive red-and-white check shirts achieved the stupendous feat of finishing third in a World Cup just seven years later – being deprived of a place in the final, moreover, only by what many would accept as an authentic example of lightning striking twice: a two-goal salvo by French defender Lilian Thuram constituting the only two goals he ever scored in 142 matches for his country.
But Slovenia, Serbia and now Bosnia-Herzegovina have all qualified for World Cup finals appearances since independence. Even little Montenegro, with a population similar to Glasgow’s, rustled up the skill and resolve to draw with England at Wembley just four years after it too gained independence. In 2010, I looked on in Johannesburg as Slovakia, independent since 1993, knocked Italy out of Africa’s first World Cup.
Impelled by pride in its newly-minted nationhood, you wouldn’t bet against a Catalonian international team performing above themselves in similar manner. (Although quite what effect such a phenomenon would have on Barcelona, the embodiment par excellence of Catalonia in club football, remains to be seen.)
And given the calibre of player such an international side may have at its disposal, if they were on top of their game, they would be tough opponents for anyone.
Actually, a suspicion is growing that the Spanish squad is not quite as formidable as it once was. It looks unlikely to embark on its quest next year for a fourth consecutive major trophy as tournament favourite.
If that suspicion is well-founded, then one of the very best international football squads we have seen may succumb to time before Catalán nationalism can have any say.
On the other hand if, come next summer, a referendum is looming and a vote for independence looks on, well what a great incentive to bid the Cataláns a possible farewell with a final burst of Brazilian glory.
David Owen worked for 20 years for the Financial Times in the United States, Canada, France and the UK. He ended his FT career as sports editor after the 2006 World Cup and is now freelancing, including covering the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the 2010 World Cup and London 2012. Owen’s Twitter feed can be accessed at www.twitter.com/dodo938.