A few home truths are required for expats before they go all out to support the Spanish national team, says Halima Ali.

EVEN the slightly less than eagle-eyed expat cannot have failed to notice that along with the sun, siestas, tapas and jamón; fútbol is very much a staple of Spanish life.

So it seems only right that as an expat residing in Spain, La Furia Roja should at the very least be your ‘second team’ to support after your native country in this summer’s European Championships.

As for the specifically British expats whose native countries failed to qualify for the tournament, it is time to put your heartbreak aside.

Watching football as a neutral is never as much fun as when you are wholeheartedly backing a team so if you want to inject a bit of excitement into your viewing of the tournament, Spain should head the list of teams you are forced to adopt as your own, at least for the three weeks of the tournament.

Spain is quite frankly obsessed with the beautiful game; a recent survey found that seven out of 10 Spaniards prefer spending an evening watching a match to making love. Almost as many confessed that they plan their lives around the next match of their beloved team.

The fact that the country’s best selling newspaper Marca is a sports daily, the bulk of which is dedicated to football speaks volumes and, always a quick way to make friends - or enemies depending on what you say – is to strike up conversation about anything football related.

The country has produced some great players and even greater clubs with Real Madrid - winners of a record nine Champions League trophies - and Barcelona considered two of the biggest names in world football, so Spain would be a good bet this summer right?

Well, before you give your full backing to the Spanish national team, and to spare yourself a little heartache in a few weeks time, there are a few home truths you may want to consider.

The Spanish are not always as enthusiastic about La Selección as they are about club football and there are various reasons for this.

The first being that unlike most countries that all get behind their national team come every major tournament, Spain is regionally divided and these divisions spill over into football.

Many Spaniards do not consider themselves to be just that. They feel, and deem themselves to be Catalan, Basque or a member of one of the other many autonomous regions of the country as opposed to actually Spanish.

For this reason, the Spanish national team has not played in the Camp Nou in Catalunya or in the Basque country - where the welcome would be anything but warm - in decades.

In fact, these autonomous regions have their own teams who turn out for international friendlies. Some players even play for both the Spanish national team and their regional team, such as Real Madrid defender Sergio Ramos who turns out in the red strip of his country as well as defending the green and white of Andalucía.

There is much debate when players are called up to the Spanish team, not over whether a player is good enough to play for his country but whether he will choose to play at all.

The most notable example is that of Barcelona defender and self-professed Catalan nationalist Oleguer. When invited to a national team get-together, observers waited to see if he would show up at the training ground in Madrid. He did, only to deliver a message to the coach that he wanted nothing to do the team. Subsequently he was not called up again.

There was also talk that former Chelsea player and Basque defender Asier Del Horno was apprehensive about being photographed next to the Spanish national flag upon his first call up to the team.

Further controversy was created when a photograph was published showing Catalans Carles Puyol and Xavi with socks folded so as to obscure the Spanish flag stitched on them. Though how much of this is true and how much is newspaper fuelled gossip is unknown.

Failure on the international stage time and time again has also served to dampen support for the team; Spain currently ranked fourth in the World by FIFA are nearly always among the pre-tournament favourites but are one of football’s greatest underachievers.

A wealth of footballing talent at their disposal, success in numerous youth tournaments and one of the best football leagues in the world has amounted to only one piece of international silverware - the European Championship trophy in 1964, hosted in Madrid.

There is one other issue that is a must-know subject for any expat wanting to back La Roja this summer, the issue of El Capitán, Raúl.

The former Captain of the national team and Spain’s all-time leading goal scorer was dropped after a defeat to Northern Ireland in an early qualifier for the European Championship in October 2006, this followed on from a disappointing showing in the World Cup that summer.

Debate has raged ever since. When the Spanish team gathered following his omission from the squad, a cheeky journalist took a life-size cardboard cut-out of the player to the training ground and stated Raúl is here!

Since then the Real Madrid striker’s form has only improved and with an impressive haul of 18 goals this season for his club, the pressure only mounted on Spanish coach Luis Aragonés. In February, the furore became so intense that the two held an unprecedented press conference arranged by Raúl, to clear the air with the media and state there were no hard feelings between the pair.

Nevertheless, despite their best efforts the debate has continued. If Spain succeeds this summer, all talk of Raúl will most definitely be shelved, but should they fall short in attack the discussion will surely continue.

Making a prediction before the tournament is far too difficult. Spain have all the potential to live up to their favourites tag and win that oh so elusive trophy, but the problem is Spain always have the potential, they just never live up to it.
 
Nevertheless, with players such as Fernando Torres, Cesc Fàbregas, David Villa, Sergio Ramos and Iker Casillas at their disposal they certainly have a great chance of success, so enjoy the beautiful football that is sure to come your way this summer, just do not be too disappointed if they fall at the quarter-final stage.