Champions League reaction: Sid Lowe answers your questions – live

proevpete asks: Hi Sid. How has La Liga and Spanish football more broadly changed since you started your reporting career? And how has the actual reporting of it changed in that time as well?

Sid:

There are loads of elements to this, not least as it’s a long time, and there have definitely been big shifts economically and so on, and obviously a lot of it is societal, which is being played out everywhere not just here.

I think some parts remain the same, the quality of the football, the taste for technique (in very broad terms, as there are a million caveats), lots of players coming through … you can see shifts in the national team of course: they were like England, the “big” team that never won and that has changed. Obviously, I think the big difference between Spain and elsewhere (well, England in this case), is the dominance of two teams … and yet that does not entirely eclipse the other clubs, some of which are very big, and I’m always very conscious of giving space and proper attention to the “other 18”. They often feel abandoned by Spanish media/society, I think. In terms of reporting, that’s central to it.

There’s immediacy now of course; I’m not pre-internet, but it has changed completely, the platforms and tools, etc. The content shift, which has been played out everywhere I think, but is much more accentuated here than anywhere else, is the increase of the shouty-confrontational stuff, which I find utterly tedious to be honest.