Honduras V. Basque National Team

This is very awesome, I have not heard about it yet. But once I hear any information I will put it up. I wish it would be telvevised, it is sure to be a good game.

 

Basque? might be a stupid qustion but srry i aint familar wit em, is that like a Spanish club?

 

Basque a region in Spain (like Aragon, Catalonia, etc). I don't understand how they have a "national team" though. Are any of their "national" players from the Spanish team? Does Euskadi mean Basque in Spanish?

Bilbao2Brooklyn, can you elaborate a little more on this?

 

Euskadi is Basque in the Basque language.

The Basque selection is not a national team per se, but does sometimes play friendlies against national teams. Cataluña also occasionally fields a regional selection. Several of the above-mentioned Basque players are quite definitely capped for Spain.

 

Why does it seem that within Spain, there is tremendous regional pride, to the point where they promote themselves not as Spanairds, but as a Catalan, or a Basque Separtist, etc? Does this have anything to do with the Spanish Reconquista from 1060-1492 regarding the crusade against the Muslims in Spain, or is it just that people in Spain like to boast, to the extreme, what city-state they are from?

Thanks.

 

I believe it is because Spain is made up of united regions which have always had a strong sense of identity.

 

There are Catalan and Basque separatists that run in the Spanish elections (along with Galicians and Canarians, which are smaller). They never do incredibly well due to their regional nature, but take seats in the parliament. (The Catalan separatists below are Convergence and Union).

Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) 10'909'687 43.33
People's Party (PP) 9'630'512 38.25
Convergence and Union (CiU) 829'046 3.29
Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC) 649'999 2.58
Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) 417'154 1.66
United Left (IU) 1'269'532 5.04
Canarian Coalition 221'034 0.88
Others
Galician Nationalist Party (BNG) 205'613 0.82

Political Group Total
Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) 164
People's Party (PP) 148
Convergence and Union (CiU) 10
Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC) 8
Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) 7
United Left (IU) 5
Canarian Coalition 3
Others 3
Galician Nationalist Party (BNG) 2

 

I have friends from San Sebastian and some of them don't really care for Spains national team, they put Real Sociedad before their NT. Alot of people from the Basque region would love to be independent, this Basque region would include some French territory as well.

 

Does anybody know if they ever play inter-regional games.?...like cataluna vs Basque or something like that_?

 

For what it is worth, Catalunya plays Argentina on the 29th, at Camp Nou. The Catalan side has been good at times, though there are a few holes, perhaps lacking a bit of depth in some areas. I would say that since At. Bilbao is all Basque and in top flight, Euskadi could name an all top flight team if they were Fifa, while Catalunya might have a few problems in some areas.

I've seen the Catalans play Bulgaria, Serbia, Nigeria, Brazil.

 

They also play aganist each other, like Canarian Team(most of the Tenerife players), Catalunya Team(Barcelona and Espanyol players such as De la Peña, guardiola, Sergio Garcia, Luis Garcia, Puyol, Valdez, etc), Basque team(all the athetic players and the ones that are playing outside), madrid team, etc.

 

does anyone know the score???

 

For those of you interested in such things, the coat of arms on the banner in the first picture is the coat of arms of each province of the Basque Country. I don't remember how they match up exactly any more, but I do recongize two: middle center is Navarra, which includes Basse Navarre in France, and top right (chief sinister) is Guipuzcoa, the province where San Sebastian/Donostia is located. In Spain the Basque provinces are Bilbao, Alaves, Guipuzcoa, and Navarra, but only the first three are part of the Autonomous region called Pais Vasco. In France there are three provinces, I believe.

Had it not been for the Franco years, and had politics in general gone a bit differently, I believe that Euskadi and Catalunya would have had their own national teams in much the same way that Wales or Puerto Rico have their own teams.

And it was always frustrating to me to see Bixente Lizarazu play for the French nats instead of for the Basque nats (if he did play for Euskadi feel free to correct me).

Anyone remember the Song of Roland? Historically it was actually a bunch of Basques who destroyed the vanguard and killed Roland. They were exacting revenge for razing the walls of Pamplona.

History lesson over. Thank you for your patience.

 

Oh, and for more information, I'll give a plug to a friend of mine:

www.buber.net/Basque

 

Blas is a great guy. We lived in Donosti at the same time, and went drinking regularly together. Zorionak!