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Gerard Pique believes Spain supporters have realised "this is football, not a patriotism contest" when it comes to their treatment of him, while Sergio Busquets says the La Roja camp are more united now than in previous years. Barcelona-born Pique, 29, has regularly been whistled by Spain fans over the last 12 months due to what many of them saw as his anti-Real Madrid and pro-Catalan independence views. They were, however, all cheering when the defender headed a late winner in Spain's opening Euro 2016 fixture against Czech Republic, and then helped keep another clean sheet as Turkey were beaten 3-0 in their second game. Speaking at a news conference ahead of Tuesday's final Group D clash against Croatia, Pique said he was pleased with how things had turned around personally for him. "I take that very happily," Pique said. "It is better to be applauded than whistled. The only way to turn the situation around is my performance on the pitch. I had the good fortune to score an important goal and I am also in very good form at the moment. The fans have realised that this is football, not a patriotism contest." Spain's smooth progress so far at Euro 2016 was interrupted on Monday when Pedro Rodriguez said he was unhappy with his bit-part role in the tournament, before then sticking by the comments when speaking at a news conference, as Del Bosque tried to play the incident down. Busquets told Al Primer Toque that the mood in the camp was much better now than in the past -- when Jose Mourinho was in charge of Madrid and the atmosphere around Clasicos was extra charged. "It is not that before we were falling out all the time, there was a normal atmosphere," Busquets said. "Now there is a much better mood, everyone is more united, there are jokes between some people. We are all in it together, which is very necessary in the world of football. "I would not say it is essential to win trophies, but it is very important. We know what happened [in the past] and don't want to repeat it as it flew out of control."
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