If sports had just one mother tongue—and by sports I mean almost exclusively soccer—it would be Spanish. Tune in to any TV or radio commentary in that language and you’ll get a constant stream of emotion only interrupted by the improbably long word “Gol!” And this extends to the printed press, too. There are a whole host of newspapers in Spain exclusively dedicated to sports, and the most distributed of these, El Marca, is second in total readership to only one serious national newspaper, El País.

The closest comparison I can think of to this in the U.S. is the weekly magazine Sports Illustrated, which has a total readership of around 23 million, but even that doesn’t do justice to the Spanish phenomenon. Add up the daily readership of the six major newspapers devoted to sports in Spain and the result is one tenth of the population. On any given day, El Marca has around 50 pages, probably comparable to the weekly output of Sports Illustrated, and the sheer number of words that are written (and read) about sports in Spain is simply huge.

And don’t get me wrong, these journals are not simply an accompaniment to those that report the news, or an equivalent of sports sections taken out of the serious papers. They’re stand-alone alternatives. Except for the absence of the topics that usually dominate the front pages of most newspapers, everything else is there—weather, lottery results, sudoku, TV schedules, even editorials and opinions. And also, perhaps surprisingly, politics.

Last Sunday’s edition of El Marca devoted more than a third of its output—the first 28 pages, no less—not just to soccer, but to one single game, El Clásico: Real Madrid vs. Barcelona. By Wednesday, ahead of the first Copa del Rey final between them in over 20 years, the theme continued. A freakish consequence of results and schedules means that by early May, these two giants of the sport will have met four times within three weeks, but even that doesn’t explain the excessive coverage. The truth is that these encounters are far more than just games of soccer in Spain.

Though a modern and liberal country now, it was not that long ago that Spain was under the yoke of dictatorship, and less than a lifetime ago that families and communities were torn asunder by civil war. There are deep wounds and political divisions that have yet to heal still buried below the surface. Under the reign of Franco, Real Madrid, based in the Spanish capital, was seen as the team that represented his centralist politics, and Barcelona, located far away in Catalunya, as the alternative. Whether or not he actively aided Madrid—a divisive topic itself—the result was that the conservative elements in society associated themselves with that team, and the more liberal sections with their rivals. To some extent, supporting Barcelona was the only way to safely show dissent against the dictatorship.

Though his death—and Spain’s transition to democracy—was over thirty years ago, a division in society remains. When it comes to a normal game, most people support their local team—whatever that might be—but when it comes to El Clásico, you are either with Madrid or with Barça. The sports newspapers themselves are no different; though they naturally aim for journalistic objectivity, there is a strong tendency to focus either on one or the other of these two clubs. Just looking at which publication is available to read in any bar or cafe can be enough to let you know which team that establishment sides with.

Last Saturday, Barcelona all but confirmed its place at the top of La Liga with a tie against Real Madrid in the first of a four-match season series, although it was the least important of the games. It was the return leg of a game played back in December in which Barça gave Madrid a punishing 5-0 lesson, but apart from offering an opportunity to regain some respect, there was never any realistic chance of it making much of an impact on the league. On Wednesday, Madrid evened the score a bit, narrowly winning the Copa del Rey 1-0 on a Ronaldo header in extra time, thereby ensuring it too will walk away from the season with a trophy. But there is still some serious silver up for grabs; in the upcoming two games they will square off against each other in the Champions League semi-finals

Although you probably won’t find any of the Spanish sports papers available anywhere around campus, the good news is that these games will be played at reasonably sociable hours for California (around lunchtime), so if you can find yourself a TV hooked up to FX or Fox you should be able to catch the action live. And if you’re feeling brave, and have had time to brush up on your Spanish, you can always tune in to Fox Deportes for the full Latin experience.

@@line:Though he’s a British national, Tom Taylor has been known to tango from class to class. His Spanish-English hybrid accent is simply caliente, and if you’d like to brush up on your own vocabulary, email him at tom.taylor “at” stanford.edu.