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Spain's national team against Finland: Aitana Bonmati (middle) celebrates her goal
Photo:
BERNADETT SZABO / REUTERS
"I've always said that there is innate talent in Spain, it just took a project and time," said Alexia Putellas, the all-time capper.
"Spain's footballers have technical qualities that you don't find anywhere else, we just lacked the physique," added Jenni Hermoso, the record goalscorer.
It was the time of the long wait for the European Championship, which had been postponed by a year, and the Spaniards were convinced that this would be their tournament.
FC Barcelona won the Champions League in 2021, with Putellas and Hermoso finishing first and second in the World Player of the Year Golden Ball awards.
They became national stars.
They're called Alexia and Jenni, and no, that's not paternalistic trivialization of women's football.
It was and is no different for many men (e.g. Raúl, Xavi, Pedri).
Well, finally, the EM is running, in the evening the top game against Germany (9 p.m. / ARD) – and both are injured.
The team was particularly shocked by Putellas' cruciate ligament rupture shortly before the tournament started, but the attacking midfielder herself made sure that the trip to England didn't degenerate into a mourning expedition.
She gave a motivational speech before the opening game against Finland (4-1), which she watched on the sidelines before she left – in the jersey of Virginia Torrecilla, another pillar of the »selección«, who had been unable to play football for two years due to a brain tumor and only slowly finding his way back into the sport.
Everything about the Spaniards this summer 2022 somehow sounds like a mission.
Game against Germany is put to the test
The game against the DFB-Elf fits the pattern perfectly.
National coach Jorge Vidal describes the chance of a possible victory as »historic«: »What we have been waiting for for years«.
The two teams met six times, and the Spaniards were never able to win.
Today's match in Brentford will be the test of whether the fabulous upswing in women's football in the country will carry the national team.
In the junior area it has long been tangible: just at the weekend, the U19 girls became European champions for the fourth time.
Record attendances of over 90,000 twice at FC Barcelona in the Champions League have attracted worldwide attention in recent months.
In addition, after years of labor pains and despite huge differences between clubs, the first division was recently granted professional status by the government.
And from this European Championship, the players will receive the same bonuses from the association as the men for the first time.
Percentage only because the income is much smaller, but still.
The emancipation phase can therefore be considered over for the time being, also in the media.
Where in past tournaments in Spain there was still a lot of reporting about gender equality and the socio-political superstructure, now everything revolves around football for women too.
A healthy sign of normality.
And thus all the more proof of how rapid the change has been in recent years.
Spaniards have come a long way
In contrast to the eight-time European champions Germany, they only reached the semi-finals once, in 1997 - they didn't even have their own department at the association until 2017.
The women were affiliated with indoor soccer and played in men's jerseys.
They were also managed by the same coach, Ignacio Quereda, for 27 years until Vidal took over in 2015.
The players described his regime as a mixture of amateurism and harassment.
But in the climate of a time when the conservatives still ruled in Madrid, critics were labeled as ideologically motivated feminists by the association.
Only when the selection players announced a strike did they force the change of coach.
At the same time, clubs like Barcelona and Atlético Madrid started to professionalize their women's departments.
Where someone like Alexia, 28, had to leave Barça as a teenager because there was no team for her age group, her club and selection colleague Claudia Pina, 20, says today quite naturally: »We have working conditions like few others«.
And where Hermoso, 32, remembers that the national team used to have at most one isolated respectable success, says Aitana Bonmatí, 24: "There's only one thing in my head: winning".
New leader and a Barça block
Aitana, goalscorer against Finland, has become the new midfield leader.
She also comes from FC Barcelona.
The clean-scoring Spanish champions had seven players in the starting XI against Finland, even without Putellas and Hermoso.
Among them goalkeeper Sandra Paños, the central defense duo of Mapi León and Irene Paredes and strategist Patri Guijarro in back midfield.
The Barça block bodes well for Spain.
On the basis of such a decade-long lack of success among men was once ended.
The women's »selección« has now not only adopted the staff from Catalonia, but also the style of play.
Possession of the ball, pass triangles, vulgo: Tiki-Taka.
A decade ago he dominated men's football until the others found the antidote with speed, physique and switching game.
Olympique Lyon recently ended the triumph of the Barça women in a similar way in the Champions League final.
The Germans can be trusted to do the same - even if they seemed pretty overwhelmed by Spain's approach in the last duel five months ago.
It was only late that Lea Schüller, who was unwell today because of Corona, saved a 1-1 draw.
Even with Putellas and Hermoso, the "selección" accompanied the central problem of their playing style, at least against top teams: superiority in the field is not always converted into enough chances and goals.
Against underdog Finland, three of Spain's four goals came uncharacteristically from the air, two of them from set pieces.
That will hardly be repeated against Germany.
What remains is the feeling that you have already achieved a lot and that you are about to take the next step.
It's a kind of missionary zeal.
"It's time for Spain to do something big," says attacker Mariona Caldentey, also FC Barcelona.
"Despite our failures."