Spain Football: Team Revival & Recent Changes

• Jonna ter veer

  Follows the European Championship in Switzerland

There she is, equipped and with a big smile, Patri Guijarro. The Spanish right leg of FC Barcelona is one of the best midfielders in the world. She is also the player who thanked for the World Cup in 2023, because she wanted to continue to fight for her principles: better circumstances with the national team.

The return of her smile took a long time.

Spain experienced a turbulent run -up to the World Cup in 2023. At the time, fifteen internationals announced that he wanted to play under national coach Jorge Vilda, because the situation under him would harm their emotional state and health.

A few players made themselves available for the Spanish team after promises from the union, but Guijarro, Claudia Pina and Mapi León remained at their position. Only last summer did Guijarro join the selection again, just like Pina. Mapi Léon is still missing.

Have the circumstances she gave up so much for and has been fighting so hard for now? “Our goal has always been: just being busy with football. Steps have been taken there,” she replies at a press conference prior to the first European Championship match of Spain against Portugal (3 July at 9 p.m. in Bern).

“In the hotel where we stay, we have our own cook. The field on which we train is fine. It was said that this was a point of improvement at the last World Cup.”

She drops a short silence, chooses her words carefully. What mainly saves? “We are not now fighting every day for and ask for all kinds of basic issues. Traveling, for example, that is very tiring for us. Now we are equipped in good condition and 24 hours before the game, so that you only have to think about football.”

“There is still a lot of work to be done,” Amanda Gutiérrez, chairman of Futpro, told the trade union that the players helped in their fight against the Spanish Association, earlier at the BBC. She added that change is “gradual”.

Even though things have improved, there is still a lot of playing. For example, there was the aftermath of the kiss that former federal chairman Luis Rubiales, after the won World Championship final, unintentionally gave Jenni Hermoso. There was a lawsuit and Rubiales was convicted in February.

Alexia Putellas and other teammates publicly supported Hermoso. That Hermoso, elected as the best player of the World Cup, was not selected for the European Championship by national coach Montse Tomé also raised many questions.

Was this a punishment because she had spoken against the union? According to Tomé, other players were better and that was the reason not to take her to the European Championship.

In addition to the social aftermath, there are the towering expectations. At the World Cup, Spain got an 8 percent chance in advance to win the tournament. This European Championship gives statistics agency OPTA a 25 percent chance. Does that not put enormous pressure on the team?

Guijarro and Tomé hold the cards against the chest. In any case, they hope to finish first in the group. “We have high expectations of this tournament,” says Tomé, “but the last European Championship winner was England, before the Netherlands, Germany won the title eight times. We are hard workers, very modest.”

Guijarro is realistic, but hopeful: “If you have a season, a summer with competitions, another season and another summer with competitions, you always think: watch out, it can take his toll physically and mentally. But I think we start very fit.”

This is indeed apparent from the training in the stadium, where players effortlessly lift weights at 29 degrees in the full sun, pull sprints, zigzags along posts and finish perfectly in small targets.

Aitana Bolmatí also trains fanatically with the rest. The 27-year-old Spanish star player was admitted on Friday with meningitis, but still joined the rest of the team in Switzerland.

If she has lost something of fitness, it would not be visible.