Fancied playing European opposition (8)
I believe the answer is:
defiance
'opposition' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'fancied playing european' is the wordplay.
'playing' indicates anagramming the letters.
'european' becomes 'e' (abbreviation e.g. EU).
'fancied' with letters rearranged gives 'defianc'.
'defianc'+'e'='DEFIANCE'
(Other definitions for defiance that I've seen before include "open disobedience" , "Challenging behaviour" , "bold resistance" , "bold opposition" , "Challenging attitude" .)