England "Shyness"

comment by itsonlyagame - #freeSanti (U6426)
posted 7 seconds ago
To understand this you have to understand the peculiarities of national sentiment in Spain. Someone referred earlier to anthems; to give you an idea, ours doesn't even have words to it because regional nationalisms in the country are too sensitive an issue. Singing or not singing along to the words would immediately draw attention and criticism from pro- or anti-whatever-nationalism involved. Spain's national identity struggles make the England-Scotland issue look like a mild disagreement over what cake to have for tea.
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wish we could bin the words to our national anthem. and the tune.

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peks (U6618) someone plz post this on the manutd board thread "england shyness" for me plz: "most of catalaonia DID celebrate when spian won the WC plus most of the catalan players in spain's WC squad such as xavi and puyol are not separatist !! only pique is as far as i know"

Peks, as stated, a sizeable portion of those squads were Catalan, Basque or from other regions where there are strong independentist sentiments. I don't presume to know each player's leanings, but I think it's fair to assume there's a varying degree of nationalist/independentist feeling amongst them and that not all players are inclined to speak out openly on the issue.

It only seems to be brought up when a country doesn't do well. Few questioned Marcos Senna's "Spanishness" after the '08 triumph; many, many more questioned Costa's after Spain flopped in 2014.

Moving away from the Spain example though, I remember the victorious French sides of '98 and '00 were sometimes referred to as 'the foreign legion' due to their backgrounds. Few cared how they felt or didn't feel about France as a nation when they won those titles, yet French players' 'national pride' has indeed been called into question when they've flopped at major tournaments.

Bottom line is that you clearly don't need to feel any degree of nationalist sentiment to do your best for a national side. Other factors are far more important than that.

(As for most of Catalonia celebrating, imo that's a highly subjective opinion and I'd say that the number of people ho did or didn't celebrate is, at best, very difficult to quantify.)

I was in Barcelona last summer during the WC, no one really cared about Spain's games. Equally my friend there said there was virtual no celebrations after the WC win 4 years previous. I was also there when Barca won the '11 CL final and I saw first hand how they like to celebrate.

Like IOAG says, there are far more important factors that will motivate a player to win a WC.

Xiu certainly didn't

Good points though. I found the way Pique was treated the other week to be quite disgusting. If it wasn't a Catalan esp one that has voiced his seperatist views as much as he has, he would have gotten such stick for his Ronaldo comments.

England "Shyness" remedied by installing a golf course at the England HQ? Fair enough, if it works and brings the players out of their shells then why not.

Now all is needed is for someone to come up with an idea to remedy the England "Shíteness" that the players suffer from every tournament.

The cricket has improved of late...is it too much to expect the football team to do the same...starting with the U21's that everyone raves about

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think he makes an glaringly obvious point here