I’m a Catalan, get me out of here

CESC Fabregas can consider himself very fortunate to have been born on May 4, 1987 rather than, say, May 4, 1967.

By virtue of his delayed arrival on the planet, Fabregas has timed his football flowering to coincide with that of his national team Spain, having finally shaken off the perennial losers tag to rule first Europe and then the world.

How different it would have been had the boy come of age at the end of the 80s, when he might well have found himself joining his Spanish team mates for a famous World Cup date in Dublin.