Piqué's getting fed up of the whistling at Spain games

I really don't like Piqué being whistled when he plays for Spain. How can we put a stop to it? In her article yesterday, Sarah Castro, our Colombia correspondent, who was at the game, revealed her shock. She says its inconceivable that club hatreds would spill over to the national side in her country. Piqué has always been an exemplary player for La Roja, nobody tries to deny that. In Murcia, no less, he nearly dislocated his entire body trying to stop the ball going into the net with an almighty jump. He's formed an imposing partnership with Sergio Ramos. As different as they are in every way, they know how to deal with their differences.

Piqué whistled at every ground in Spain

It's true that he's not the first to suffer this. Carlos won his first international cap in El Molinón against Brazil when he was Oviedo's number 9 and was continually barracked. Further back, it happened to Luis Suárez in the Bernabéu, because the fans wanted to see Rial, and to Di Stéfano in the Camp Nou due to a misunderstanding about an article he'd written in a British newspaper. But they were one-offs. What's happening to Piqué occurs at every game on Spanish soil, because no matter where Spain plays about half the fans will be Real Madrid supporters. And many of them take advantage to whistle Piqué for his constant attacks on Madrid.

What makes me most angry about this is the confusion. He's whistled for being anti-Real Madrid, antimadridista as we say in Spain, not because of doubts over his commitment to Spain. But in these tense days there people who deliberately confuse the two. There's an obsession with identifying Madrid with Spain and Barça with Catalonia. But in this case and at this time, this seems to be me to be particularly venemous. It's true that Piqué could do more about the matter, if he decided not to constantly launch broadsides at Real Madrid, instead of looking for guilty parties where there aren't any. And the bad thing is that Spain's next game is against Italy... at the Bernabéu.