ABSTRACT
The portrayal of foreigners in Spanish football and, in particular, the representation of Spain's foreign neighbours in its 'quality' daily press will shed important light on the nature of heterotypification, the characterisation of the Other in discourse. These issues take on an added pertinence in Spain. Spain is frequently regarded (by many Spaniards and non-Spaniards alike) as an isolated country, geographically on the edge of Europe, cut-off from France by the physical and psychological barrier of the Pyrenees and sharing much in common with its close north African neighbours. Indeed, the legacy of the Moors, Muslim invaders from north-west Africa, who dominated most of the southern and central parts of Spain from the eighth to the fifteenth century, resides not only architecturally in their grand, stronghold palace in Granada (the Alhambra) but also culturally in the Arabic influences on the development of Spanish society. Needless to say, the years of the Franco dictatorship (1939-75) and the consequent politico-diplomatic ostracism of Spain by the rest of Europe merely served further to reinforce the image of Spain's being a country apart. In some respects, if for different reasons, it might be felt that Spain shares much in common with the United Kingdom in terms of its historically and psychologically isolated outlook on the rest of Europe. Are these features present, then, in Spanish football writing? Let us examine first the representation of foreign footballers playing in the Spanish league before moving on to consider the portrayal in the press of Europe's other dominant football nations, England, France, Germany and Italy.
