Union. Beyond the t-shirt, the flag or the colors. Sorority. The players of the Spanish team culminated a complicated and historic week for women’s football with the ball at his feet. What they want to do, why they dedicate themselves to this sport. Although Alexia already admitted it before the match, they are not only footballers. They can not. “We have been sleeping four hours for a week and We have had to get it into our heads that we cannot just be footballers.“What’s more, on the pitch, they still are.
In the match that opened the Nations League, a qualifying tournament for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, Spain visited Sweden at the Gamma Ullevi in Goteborg. A stadium of sweet memory for the culés, since in front of those stands they raised the first Champions League for the culé club. Now, with the Spain shirt, and in a much less friendly environment, the footballers stood on the grass after a hard week. The faces of Irene Paredes and of Alexia Putellas They said it all in the preview. Sleep, exhaustion and stress. Anxiety has been one more in the locker room these days, and the meetings and conversations, crucial to exploding an archaic and sexist system of the Federation, have kept the national team’s players away from football.
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This Friday, when the ball was rolling again a month after becoming World Cup champions, The climate in the selection was very different. No euphoria, no smile. Against Sweden they arrived exhausted and the match, beyond the match, was the scene of a new claim. All the players in the national team’s locker room, substitutes and starters, come out onto the green with a bracelet where you could read: “It’s Over”. The motto that has changed Spanish football. Furthermore, together with the Swedish soccer players, they posed with a banner where you could also read the motto accompanied by a cry: “Our fight is a global fight“.
Before the game, another image full of meaning occurred. The Spanish women joined in a hug before forming a circle, where Irene Paredes and Alexia Putellas spoke as captains. All, united in the fight that occupies them.