BarcelonaWhat do Alexia Putellas, Mapi León, Marta Torrejón and Claudia Pina have in common, apart from being four of the architects of the recent successes of Barça and the Spanish national team? All four were trained in one of the nine founding clubs of the Women’s First Division: Espanyol. Three of them, in fact, had already debuted with the white-and-blue first team in the highest category when Barça lifted their first League, in 2012. Torrejón, aged 14; Putellas, with 16; León, with 18. They are some of the many footballers who found at Espanyol the ideal springboard to boost their careers towards the Spanish national team and other prominent clubs.
“Espanyol was one of the three best teams in Spain in women’s football. It was respected and admired because it was known to be a strong, competitive and winning team that aimed to try and win the League and the Cup. We were always there, winning or playing in finals”, recalls Vero Boquete for ARA, who before traveling halfway around the world played for Espanyol in two stages between 2008 and 2011. But what has happened because one of the pioneers of women’s football state has fallen into oblivion and accumulated three consecutive seasons in Segona?
Founded in 1971 by Gran Penya Espanyolista Manigua, the women’s section of Espanyol established itself as one of the leading teams since the creation of the main national competitions in the eighties. The Queen’s Cups of 1996 and 1997 preceded a first decade of the 21st century full of successes: four more Cups, between 2006 and 2012 – apart from three lost finals – and the only League that shines on its record (2005-06). Espanyol became the first Catalan club to celebrate two women’s and men’s titles in a bus ride through the streets of Barcelona, as well as the first Catalan club to participate in the Women’s Champions League.
The treatment of the Periquita entity towards female footballers stood out at a time when women’s football was still quite precarious. “Espanyol was the club that offered the best possible conditions to the players. We had a contract, one of the best in Spain, together with Rayo Vallecano and Levante, they paid us the flat at the ones we came from outside, in addition to trips home and some bonus for winning titles. We were one of the few clubs that traveled by train or plane and did pre-seasons outside of Barcelona. The team’s budget and the signings that were made helped to fight for the titles”, recalls Boquete. Those footballers trained at the Ciutat Esportiva Dani Jarque in the evenings, and not in the mornings like now. “We weren’t professionals, many of us studied or worked,” points out the Galician player.
The parakeet team, which also achieved three runner-up finishes, did not drop from fourth place in the Superliga between 2005 and 2012. Until 2020, it was also the team with the most Copas de la Reina, six. The sporting bonanza began to falter from 2012, when the economic difficulties that dragged the entity led to a severe cut in the budget of the women’s section. The beginning of Espanyol women’s sporting and economic decline coincided with the first of Barça’s eight Leagues, which began the current winning cycle by attracting some former Espanyol players.
A former player to the rescue of a section under reconstruction
One of the footballers of the last great Espanyol, Dolors Ribalta, was chosen in 2022 as coordinator of the white-and-blue women’s football. “We were at the pole position and we missed opportunities. We had the best conditions and the best players in Spain. We have to recover positions after being relegated to Second, but go up again, because women’s football has gained visibility. It has been pretty even and there are many powerful teams working to get promoted”, says Ribalta to ARA.
The ex-player wants to rebuild the section based on four axes: “Identity, so that the girls have parakeet DNA; planter, providing comprehensive training and minimizing the leakage of talent, so that the majority of footballers have been trained at home; history, giving visibility to the half century of life of one of the longest-lived sections, and performance, giving tools for players to grow both individually and collectively with data and innovation”.
Ribalta, who has redesigned the organizational chart of the section, leads a structure that maintains a budget similar to last year despite the relegation of the men’s team to Segona. “Among other reinforcements, we now have a talent recruiter, a new performance department, physical trainers with GPS, nutritionists and a tidy protocol,” he says. Ribalta is clear about the way forward: “In grassroots football we are not interested in winning leagues, but in building valid players for a first team that must use its history as an impetus to see how far it can go”. The club’s objective is clear: to end the season with a double promotion to First.
2023-10-16 11:45:20
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