Prime Minister Narendra Modi reminded visiting Spanish President Pedro Sanchez about the craze for football in India. To illustrate his point, he talked about the popularity of El Clasico, the famed battle between Real Madrid and Barcelona.
"Spanish football is liked a lot in India... Barcelona's spectacular victory was a subject of discussion here as well. I can tell you that there was as much banter between the fans of the two clubs in India, as it would've been in Spain," Modi said at an event in Vadodara that was attended by Sanchez. The PM was referring to the recent battle between Real and Barca, famously dubbed El Clasico. Barca won that battle 4-0, with Robert Lewandowski scoring a brace.
But does the PM know which football club the Spanish president supports? "I’m a big supporter of Atletico Madrid," Sanchez said in an interview with Politico a few years ago.
By that admission, his football loyalty puts him in direct confrontation with the biggest club in Spain, Real Madrid. So, how would he have felt seeing Real suffer a humiliating 4-0 loss to Barcelona in the recent El Clasico? That is anybody's guess.
But that is not all, did you know Sanchez was a basketball player in his youth days? Before venturing into politics, Sanchez was a decent basketball player. While attending the Ramiro Maeztu school, he played for Estudiantes Basketball Club. It was at Estudiantes that Sanchez became a supporter of Atleti.