Spain take on England in the 2023 Women’s World Cup final on Sunday, the first time either team have had a chance to get their hands on the prize.
What can the players expect?
What’s it like to wake up on a morning like no other, knowing you’re only hours away from a match that will define your career?
What about the expectations back home? How do you keep calm and focused with the weight of a nation on your shoulders?
Vicente del Bosque, who led Spain’s men’s team to World Cup glory in 2010, will be watching back home.
This is his message to Jorge Vilda’s players.
I’m not in favour of saying ‘go out and enjoy it’. It’s one thing to enjoy it and another thing to have responsibility. It is very important to have that feeling of responsibility, that we are playing for a lot.
In 2010, we had to enjoy the game, but with that sense of duty that a person should have before an event as extraordinary as a World Cup final. You have to harness that emotion; emotional strength is so important.
My message to our players before the final against the Netherlands was that it was possibly the most important game of our lives, but that we were just football players.
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In any other profession, there is not the global attention that football brings. Everything that happens has an echo and more so in a championship where everything is concentrated in one month. Nothing prepares you for that. You have to live it but with some restraint.
This group of players has enough experience and knowledge of football. They are no beginners. They have to live it and they are living it. What’s more, they have deserved this: they have been better than their opponents. Against Japan, they had a very uncomfortable match, everything went their opponents’ way, but otherwise, Spain have earned their place in the final.
Spain celebrate their semi-final victory over Sweden (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
There are some very good players. Aitana Bonmati is playing very well. I like the two full-backs, Ona Batlle and Olga Carmona. They have solidity in midfield and with the two central defenders. Then there is Jennifer Hermoso, Alba Redondo, Alexia Putellas.
They are a good team. I think this Spain side has a similarity with our experience in 2010 in that they have grown stronger throughout the tournament. I’ve always talked about the senior women’s national team being a step below the big powers, but now I think we’ve taken a step forward and we can compete with anyone.
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In the past, I have been in touch with our national teams, such as at the Under-17 European Championship, through a video connection. But in this case, they certainly have enough people around them and the players will need little motivation because the match itself motivates them. That they all have the chance to play, that they are all involved, is good. I think Vilda is managing the squad very well.
We shouldn’t make too many comparisons with 2010. I’m embarrassed to even talk about it. But I think that, like back then, everyone is watching back home.
Every town in Spain will take to the streets and we felt that at the time. It was an extraordinary event and we felt it, just as we do now. New technologies mean we’ll all know if the Plaza de la Concordia back in my home town of Salamanca is full. I imagine the players’ families will be, as far as possible, all with them to watch the game and enjoy it with their loved ones. They live the journey as well.
But for our country, it goes beyond football itself. We’ve always had some kind of inferiority complex that seems to plague us and this World Cup final is a magnificent example of the modernity of Spain. I’m sure other nations will look at them with admiration.
I’ll be watching at the home where I spend my summer holidays, in Marbella, with friends and family. And I’ll be full of admiration, too.
(Top photo: Oscar J. Barroso / AFP7 / Europa Press Sports via Getty Images)
