BARCELONA, Spain — If these exact passes that untangle defenses and the assaults coming from all angles by first-time Women’s World Cup finalist Spain look acquainted, there may be good purpose.
The Spanish squad is constructed on a core of Barcelona gamers who’ve triumphed with their membership and at the moment are one step from the final word prize after they face England on Sunday in Sydney.
Nine Barcelona gamers, together with two-time Ballon d’Or winner Alexia Putellas, attacking midfielder Aitana Bonmatí and defensive chief Irene Paredes, are among the many key gamers for Spain.
The membership’s affect additionally extends to the England group, which options Barcelona gamers Lucy Bronze and Keira Walsh.
“Some of us are very lucky, we’ve won two Champions Leagues with Barcelona,” Bonmatí mentioned after beating Sweden 2-1 within the semifinals.
Barcelona’s ladies’s group has performed in entrance of file crowds exceeding 90,000, Bonmati added, “but playing a World Cup final in front of 75,000, it will be crazy.”
“I can’t believe it’s going to happen. Am I in a dream?”
This shocking run by a technology of girls who began their careers with few of some great benefits of their male counterparts has ended up on an identical path relating to taking Spain to the highest.
Just as Spain’s 2010 World Cup champion group included seven Barcelona members – led by Andrés Iniesta, Xavi Hernández and Carles Puyol – and coincided with the membership’s finest years, the rise of the nationwide ladies’s group comes after Barcelona’s ladies established themselves as one among Europe’s elite groups.
Barcelona’s ladies’s group has reached 4 of the final 5 Champions League finals, successful two, together with a 3-2 comeback over Wolfsburg in June. It has additionally received 4 consecutive Spanish league titles. This development got here a decade after Barcelona began critically investing in its ladies group.
“You only have to look back five or 10 years, the change is incredible,” Putellas mentioned. “When there has been a bit of investment, or federations and certain clubs have provided greater support, we have seen radical change.”
Similar to these nice “tiki-taka” sides of Iniesta and Xavi, Spain’s ladies additionally dominate possession, press rapidly to get better misplaced balls in opposing territory, and wish to dictate the tempo. Spain leads the event in passing accuracy (84%), proper in entrance of England (83%), in response to OPTA Analyst statistics.
As effectively as Putellas and Bonmatí, Barcelona has offered 19-year-old winger Salma Paralluelo, a participant who has given Spain a way more versatile assault. Her objectives had been key to beating the Netherlands 2-1 within the quarterfinals and to beating Sweden.
In that group of Barcelona-trained gamers might additionally go Pachuca ahead Jenni Hermoso, who had two stints with Barcelona and helped them win their first European Cup in 2019.
Spain leads the event with 17 objectives, to 13 for England. They have unfold the scoring round: Bonmatí, Hermoso and Alba Redondo every have three.
Spain coach Jorge Vilda can be steeped in Barcelona’s techniques. Vilda’s father was a bodily coach for Barcelona’s males’s group below Johan Cruyff. The son declares himself a follower of the passing assault that Cruyff made the hallmark model of its groups.
As a toddler, Vilda educated at Barcelona’s La Masia academy similtaneously Xavi, the midfielder who coaches Barcelona’s males. He has spent most of his profession contained in the Spanish federation, first main its youth squads earlier than taking on the senior ladies’s group in 2015 following a participant revolt towards his predecessor.
“We tell the players who come (to the national teams) for the first time when they are 13, 14 years old about how they need to apply pressure, how they must keep control of the ball and attack,” Vilda informed Spanish newspaper El País in a current interview. “And even though I have absorbed things from different coaches, like Cruyff, (José) Mourinho, (Jupp) Heynckes, (Luis) Aragonés, (Vicente) del Bosque, (Julen) Lopetegui or Luis Enrique, I am clearly influenced by Barcelona’s possession-based style and the years I spent at the club.”
Barcelona might have had much more gamers on Spain’s squad had it not been for a disaster between the participant group and Vilda that they’ve by some means managed to beat on the World Cup. Last September, 15 gamers mentioned they had been renouncing taking part in for Spain below Vilda, claiming their emotional well being was endangered, till enhancements had been made. But the federation caught by Vilda, and solely three of the rebels, together with Bonmatí, returned to the nationwide group.
Those rebels who didn’t return embrace 4 Barcelona gamers who received the Champions League in June: Goalkeeper Sandra Paños, defender María León, ahead Claudia Pina and midfielder Patricia Guijarro, who scored twice to beat Wolfsburg within the closing.
One sudden results of the turmoil has been the revelation that Spain has a good deeper pool of expertise to attract on. The victories in Australia and New Zealand appear to have additionally bonded the group.
Beyond the contribution of Barcelona, Spain has benefited from the expansion of Spanish ladies’s soccer general. The ladies’s league is skilled, the video games are on tv and the home media has elevated its protection.
So the work of the golf equipment and federation has had a payoff within the worldwide enviornment.
From by no means having received a knockout sport at a serious world event, Spain has received three in succession and now has an opportunity to avenge its quarterfinal elimination to eventual champion England finally yr’s European Championship.
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