Champions League reaction: Sid Lowe answers your questions – live

Sid Lowe is our Spanish football correspondent, based in Madrid, and has been covering an increasingly busy beat for years. He answers your questions

tpth asks: Sid! I’m a massive fan of both your writing and the country about which you write. I’m wondering how you learned to speak Spanish/how you came to develop such an affinity for Spanish culture – I feel like I read you did an exchange year at some point?

Sid:

Thank you. And hello everyone. Tea made, so I’m ready. (Which, erm, maybe undermines this first question/answer a bit).

I suppose the simple answer is: people. And, in truth, while I do think Spain is special and there are lots of very good reasons to believe it’s different, who knows, it might have worked out the same way if somehow I had ended up in Italy or France or Germany or wherever. The practical answer, which takes in the language and, from there, I guess the affinity, is that I did Spanish at school (as well as French).