I couldn’t dream Irene Paredes a lot with reaching the final of a World Cup because there have been more problems than the way to get there. You can already say that it can be done, that it is possible, that if this selection has achieved it, now the next ones will have it a little easier. That’s what he was talking about in the preview of the most important match of his life, a final that he could never have dreamed of.
«Throughout my career, having not had references, I have been taking steps because I liked it and some doors opened. But when you get to the elite, which is where you want to go, you weren’t always given these opportunities. It is easy to say that we are in a World Cup final, but it costs a lot, “he commented at the press conference.
They have managed to be European and world champions in different lower categories and Paredes explains it this way: «There has been a change of mentality, but also a physical change, of understanding of the game, a sum of experiences. The important thing is that all the girls develop to be able to play for the national team. It is a cumulus of all that why we are here today. At the moment, he says, there are no nerves, but tomorrow someone will surely enter: «It is logical when you play a game like this. We are happy and we are very clear that what has brought us here is training and having the focus on the field. Try to do things a little better and enjoy it. Let’s focus on the field. It is appreciated to train in the stadium to see how the ball rolls and to be able to take references.
He has played with some of the soccer players who will be rivals tomorrow. And he spoke to them to congratulate them when they got through to the final, but he has preferred not to continue with any further contact.
He emphasizes that what can make England win tomorrow is that “it is a team”, and thanks everyone who has helped to make it so. Not only in this World Cup, but from the beginning: «What this team has is that it is a team. Many people have worked very well, we have evolved in recent years and there is a mix of youth and veterans in which each one contributes their own, which has made a very good combination. There is a lot of trust in us and hard work has led us to the opportunity to play a final tomorrow. It is important for us, but also for what is generated outside. Many of us have grown up thinking that football was not our place. That you have been trained by people who were hardly prepared for it, that you have had the worst hours, we have improved conditions in professional football, but not in amateur football. If it serves to let them know that this place is also ours and that a World Cup final can be played, if we are a benchmark, it makes us very happy”.
They closed the door on the captaincy issue and want to focus on the game, admitting that all the noise that has been generated around the importance of this game saps their energy. What adds fuel to them is knowing that there are screens in many Spanish cities that will gather hundreds of fans tomorrow to watch their game. «We continue with the change, we are interested, they are following us, people claim us, support us. We are talking about making history and that these things happen is also making history. When things go well, people get hooked, there are more media, people talk more about us. If getting to tomorrow’s match sportingly is brutal, it also makes us happy for what is happening outside. If it serves for changes at the level of society, clubs and institutions, happy about it«.
They asked him what Spain does to win everything in the lower categories and now be in the final of an absolute World Cup: «We are a football country, we have grown with it as a society, but it was not our place, that’s how it made us feel. But I think that the generation before mine already fought a lot and they began to make a lot of effort. They were stubborn and have been pushing for it to be reversed. That the lower categories are doing well is no coincidence: it is the players, the clubs and the Federation that is putting the means in.
And he sent a message to those who have not yet had the opportunity to see them play: «For all the people who do not know us, I am glad that they are hooked, that they like us. Let’s play nice. I would ask you to support us, to give us the opportunity. Even to the institutions and clubs that support grassroots football, that give us the same opportunities. With effort we can do very beautiful and important things.
2023-08-19 08:16:02
#grown #feeling #football #place
