Despite missing 12 stars due to a protest, Jorge Vilda’s team is just one step away from the title.
A year ago, England crushed Spain’s dream of becoming European champions. La Roja conceded an equalizer at the buzzer in their quarter-final in Brighton before losing after extra time.
A year later, things are different. Spain got a late draw against both the Netherlands and Sweden in the quarter-finals and semi-finals of the Women’s World Cup respectively, but the team emerged victorious on both occasions.
Spain is a team that has learned from the past, that has grown and improved. But the 12 months that elapsed between these two tournaments, the latter of which saw La Roja make history by reaching a first women’s World Cup final, couldn’t have been more difficult.
At the time, the Spanish team was surrounded by chaos off the field, due to the unavailability of many players, several of whom expressed a desire for internal change. The World Cup squad doesn’t even have 12 top tier names who have withdrawn from the team due to situations that have affected their “state of mind and personal”. And yet Spain has made history and is about to do even more.
In New Zealand they won a World Cup knockout match for the first time, reached the quarter-finals for the first time and then secured a place in a final for the first time. Now they will fly over the Tasman Sea and land in Australia in the hopes of taking all the honours, hoping to get their revenge on England in Sydney next Sunday.
With everything that has happened in the past year, how did you manage to achieve all of this?
Source: Goal