The Daily Rojiblanco: October 2, 2017

• A note on Catalonia and Barcelona

While our aim at Into the Calderón will always be to bring you focused, comprehensive coverage of Atlético Madrid, it is impossible to recap the weekend in LaLiga without briefly discussing the referendum in Catalonia yesterday and its impact on LaLiga play.

Yesterday the regional Government of Catalonia went forward with a referendum on independence from Spain. The government declared the referendum illegal by virtue of a ruling by the Constitutional Court of Spain and took action to prevent the polling from taking place. Subsequent confrontations between voters, demonstrators and federal police forces resulted in numerous injuries.

As is often the case, sport is not immune to the impacts of such events. This proved true yesterday as the match between Barcelona and Las Palmas was played behind closed doors at Camp Nou after the league (whose leadership has been vocal in support of the Spanish position) denied Barcelona’s request (whose leadership has been supportive of the Catalan position) to have the match postponed. You can find the official statement of the league here and Barcelona’s official statement here. To complicate matters, Las Palmas took the step of supporting the Spanish government’s position via an embroidered flag on the game jersey for this match. Barcelona won the match, 3-0, but that result is secondary.

This is a developing story, and one likely to have a far-reaching impact, both for Spain and Catalonia at large but also for LaLiga and its Catalan members. For now, I’m sure we can all take a moment to send our well wishes to those injured while trying to exercise their right to vote. You can find more in-depth coverage from our neighbors at Barca Blaugranes.

• Simeone reaches impressive milestone

Atlético Madrid’s manager reached the impressive milestone of 500 matches with the club this weekend. Simeone made 172 appearances as a player for los Rojiblancos and the 0-0 draw at Leganés marked his 328th game as coach.

He sits in third place on the all-time appearances list behind Adelardo Rodríguez, who made 550 appearances as a player for the club, and player/coach/legend Luis Aragonés, who represented the club in an astonishing 980 matches.

• Griezmann to star in children’s books

To end on a lighter note, AS report that Antoine Griezmann is set to star in a series of children’s books entitled “Goal”:

Though there is an editor for the series, the promotional materials seem to suggest that Griezmann himself has some authorial role and the content is autobiographical in nature.

You can start following the adventures of “Tony Grizi” on Oct. 12.