The magic of Pere Puig every summer is able to turn the limited economic resources of the Uni into exciting staff. This year, marked by the virus and the effects of the storm Gloria that devastated Fontajau in January, has done so again. If the pandemic allows, the Girona fans will enjoy one more season with Laia Palau, Sonja Vasic, Araújo, Oma and Elonu, will be able to cheer with the returns of Reisingerova and Chelsea Gray, and will determine if the clinical eye of the sports director continues with the arrivals of Eldebrink and Labuckiene. Fontajau has been shining stars for years, but Spar Girona does not forget the role of the base either. This season, Girona’s pride in the first team has two names of its own. Two parallel lives, because they have been trained at home, who will try to take advantage of the opportunity they have been given, through different paths, to make a hole in an impactful dressing room.
Júlia Soler (Banyoles, 18 years old) has been presented by the club as the bet for the future. He comes from GEiEG Uni, where last year he tasted the Women’s League 2, and makes the leap under the orders of Eric Suris, with whom he had already made his debut the previous season in the Women’s League and the Euroleague. The other protagonist is the pivot Iho López (Blanes, 23 years old), who returns home to live a second chance. Initially, although he will train with the first team, he will compete with the GEiEG Uni. He has not competed for two years after a serious traffic accident in the U.S. cut off his progression in basketball that he was experiencing in the NCAA (Florida State). A scholarship allowed him to complete the baccalaureate in the USA in 2015 (after making his debut with Anna Caula in Fontajau in the 2013/14 academic year and being part, in the following one, of the squad that won the first league under Roberto Íñiguez) . He prepared for college at the IMG Academy and graduated with a degree in Computer Engineering from Florida State. She had come to the US alone and without speaking English. The accident (a fractured femur and other injuries) cut off his progression in basketball, but not in studies. He would have liked to be an airplane pilot “but playing is very difficult to achieve.” He will now combine Uni with two distance masters, one on Computational Fluid Dynamics (“he is focused on chemical engineering and what he does is see how fluids affect different structures”), and another on Aerospace Engineering, which it is what I would like to pursue in the future. His dream is to be an airplane pilot “but it’s a lot of money and now I don’t have time to do the internship either”. At the moment, she channels her passion for aviation and speed in her studies “so that she can be an aerospace engineer and work on airplanes, designing them and adapting them to the changes that are coming out”. Soler also does not forget his training and is pursuing a double degree in Economics and Business Administration at the UdG.
Learn, enjoy
They met this summer. The difference of five years of age and that Iho López left in 2015 for the USA explains it. They admit that playing “with the home team” always gives a “plus” and do not reject the label of representing the Girona pride that has made a fortune in recent years. On the wing of Banyoles “it is very lucky to be able to reach the highest level at home, it is a good opportunity. It is comfortable and you have the support of family and friends. We have been following the first team for many years and to be able to get there is to touch the ceiling where we mirrored ourselves ”. Iho, for his part, is grateful for “the opportunity to be able to return to the club where I played for so many years, it’s an honor, and I want to work to have minutes.” They don’t think much of anything other than “learning and enjoying” during this season. They know that the competition is maximum and that is why Soler says that “I want to gain experience and continue training as a player”. As the way to get to the first team is different from one another, Iho López does not hide that he has a second chance ahead “to pick up the tone, feel good on the court and put the maximum enthusiasm into it” . He will have to convince the coaches starting in League 2 with GEiEG Uni, where he will share a team with other players who, as a result of the link, will also be very much controlled by Èric Surís.
If in studies they have in common their academic successes, in basketball what unites them is that both have hung the base jewelry label from a very young age. Iho López is from the 1997 generation, one of the most prolific in Spanish women’s basketball. He won the treble in training categories with the Spanish team (gold in U16, U18 and U20), and in the World Cup (U17) they gave war to the USA until the last minutes. He shared destiny with María Conde, Maite Cazorla, Paula Ginzo, his now partner in Girona María Araújo and Ángela Salvadores, among others. Soler has also excelled in training basketball and, for example, started last season having won gold in the European Under-18 3 × 3, along with Laura Méndez and Laia Moya, with whom he played in the GEiEG Uni.
The state of alarm and confinement to fight the expansion of the covid-19 cut Soler’s progress just when he had just made his debut in the Euroleague (against Schio in Fontajau) and Surís gave him an alternative. in the League (Al Qazeres). It was at the best moment, also with GEiEG Uni, which, despite making its debut in Ligue 2, had made it difficult to stay on track ”. The opportunities were coming to me, in good dynamics, and everything stopped suddenly ». Iho lived the first months of the pandemic in the US. In Florida, “there was never a point where everyone was confined without being able to leave home, the face-to-face classes were over.” He had no trouble coming back. He did so on August 3, having to pass only one test to prove that he did not have the virus to be able to fly back to Catalonia.
Iho’s damn accident
Four years in the US have changed Iho Lopez, they have strengthened him. He is now fluent in English and has managed to shine in his studies. And she has done it all on her own, even recovering from a serious car accident that forced her to have surgery in 2018 and 2019 and that has kept her inactive for two years. Of course, “I never considered leaving basketball”, a statement of intent from the Blanes center-back, who does not give up on winning on the court as well. “A lot of people told me to fold, that I would never play again, and I never wanted to. I had to feel for myself that I couldn’t, and I never felt it. I have always gone ahead and believed in myself, ”he says. The injuries from the traffic accident were considerable. He ruptured the C2 and L1 vertebrae, a rib and the femur, “and at the very moment of the accident or we don’t know when, I also damaged my hip labral.”
She underwent surgery on her femur in the U.S. in 2018, while following college progression, “but they didn’t see she also had a hip injury”. She complained that something was wrong “and they didn’t pay attention to me” until a year later they gave her the reason, the labial was broken, and she had to go through the operating room again. In short, two years without competing, finishing his degree in Computer Engineering in three years and starting a master’s degree. “Now I take the return to the Uni as an opportunity, with an open mind, and a desire to work. These first days of training I felt pretty good, ”he says.
Because they want to learn, they know that sharing a locker room with the constellation of stars that the Uni has managed to reunite is priceless. They treat them like a few more. “Feeling part of the same team as them, being part of the same thing is very motivating,” emphasizes Júlia Soler.
They all go. They want to learn, progress and earn minutes, without this holding back their ambition to scratch minutes despite the competition they face. Soler has found a lot of support and advice from Mau Puig, his former coach. “We have a team to compete for everything and win titles,” adds Banyolina. Iho López is also clear: “Every day is an opportunity to go out and eat the world.” It is said.
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