"I always wish Real Madrid to do badly."
Gerard Pique has been getting booed by Spain fans, a fair proportion of whom are Real fans, and judging by his comments at today's press conference he is not backing down and the booing will not stop any time soon.
A proud Catalan, the Barcelona defender has not hidden his views in favour of the self-determination movement in his native region and has taken public digs at Real over the years.
Off The Ball's European football correspondent Graham Hunter joined us on tonight's show to discuss the issue and gave us the background behind the bad feeling towards Pique.
Addressing the media's role, Graham said: "I think there's a little sub-story here. This has been made a little more inflammatory because of the idea that the federation couldn't play a home friendly against England at the Bernabeu in case it compromises Pique - it's just made up," he said, before pointing out that what was good was that Pique wanted to speak to the media to clear the air and give his side to the story.
Graham also previewed Barcelona's upcoming La Liga clash with Atletico Madrid.
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