Spain vs Catalonia

Spain stormed into the last 16 yesterday night with a 2-1 win over dark horses Chile in Pretoria. FC Barcelona's influence on the national team is huge at the moment. David Villa and Andres Iniesta, both blaugrana representatives, got the goals that sealed qualification beyond the group stages. I often get asked, including a couple of times via the comments section of this blog, if Catalonia would beat Spain if they were allowed to compete independently of their current sovereign state. So I thought I'd try and settle the issue here by letting you decide.

 Here is a select Catalan XI and a Spanish XI (excluding all Catalan players, obviously). Don't forget that some of the players who have progressed through the ranks of the Barcelona academy from a young age, such as Andres Iniesta and Pedro, are not actually Catalan.

CATALUNYA                                            ESPANYA

Victor Valdes (Barcelona)                    Iker Casillas (Real Madrid)
Joan Capdevila (Villarreal)                   Sergio Ramos (Real Madrid)                
Carles Puyol (Barcelona)                     Carlos Marchena (Valencia)  
Gerard Pique (Barcelona)                    Raul Albiol (Real Madrid)
Fernando Navarro (Sevilla)                  Alvaro Arbeloa (Real Madrid) 
Oscar Serrano (Racing Santander)       Jesus Navas (Sevilla)
Cesc Fabregas (Arsenal)                     Andres Iniesta (Barcelona)
Xavi Hernandez (Barcelona)                Xabi Alonso (Real Madrid)
Sergi Busquets (Barcelona)                 David Silva (Valencia)
Sergio Garcia (Real Betis)                    David Villa (Barcelona)
Bojan Krkic (Barcelona)                       Fernando Torres (Liverpool)

The first thing you notice is that Real Madrid and Barcelona have an unhealthy monopoly on both Spain and Catalonia's best players. I'll let you decide who you think would win in a face-off between these two sides but in my opinion Spain would edge it. Defensively they are very even, in midfield they are very even, but up front Spain look clearly superior. They have a lot more strength in depth as well; players like Pedro, Javi Martinez, Juanma Mata and Fernando Llorente, all members of the full national squad in South Africa, would be on the bench.