Sporting "What Ifs" can provide endless hours of entertainment between friends and colleagues. We at Balls.ie like to encourage healthy debate between peers, and aren't afraid to ask the hard questions.
So, with talk of Catalan independence reaching a crescendo (and how that would affect football), we thought it best to posit a situation whereby Spain Vs Catalonia could become a reality on a football pitch.
Even if La Rioja have fallen from there very high perch in recent years, they still possess an incredibly talented bunch of footballers. But how would that be diluted if you took away the Catalan born players. Here's two teams cobbled together that could possibly represent Spain and Catalonia if the two were to ever split.
Strengths: The midfield is disgustingly talented with Busquets breaking up play and letting the four in front of him Tiki Taka their way up the pitch.
Weaknesses: Apart from the midfield there isn't a huge amount of depth,the defence could be quiet shaky and ideally you'd want two more established strikers.
Strengths: More defensibly solid than the Catalan team with just as much creativity in midfield, plus Diego Costa up front.
Weaknesses: No obvious weaknesses with this team, if you really wanted to nitpick the two young full backs could get exposed by the trickery of Catalan midfield.
Two very strong teams (and you could even throw in Marc Bartra to shore up the Catalan defence) so we'll leave it up to you to pick a winner.
