“Regions remembered who had fought for whom, and they have not forgotten. Football grounds grew up out of the divided earth and have not forgotten either.”

“The great artists and poets may have gone, but football is here.”

“Que se jodan.'It was as if the girl had summed up, in three words, the way Spanish regions really feel about each other.”

“Barcelona fans labor under the touchingly innocent belief that everyone else in the world, apart from Real Madrid and Espanyol fans, is happy to accept that their club is the biggest on earth and quite simply the bees' knees of the whole footballing cosmos.”

“The essential absurdity of football - that it has become so important - is nine-tenths of the poetry.”

“The terrible beauty of Spanish football is that someone, somewhere, hates your guts and will always be delighted to demonstrate this when your team comes to town.”

“In Coruña, people sit around on the sea walls or the rocks and stare out to sea, as if they expect Francis Drake to turn up again and sack the city. A contemplative lot, the Galicians.”