Women's football in Spain
Thursday, July 7, 2022
Article summary
World-record crowds, club success, star players and countless youth titles – Spanish football is missing just one thing, a triumph at senior level.
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History
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Spanish female football has hit the headlines with record-breaking Camp Nou crowds for Barcelona in the UEFA Women's Champions League, along with the Blaugrana's superb 2020/21 European triumph, but that only scratches the surface of Spain's rise to prominence. In the last ten years, Spain have become a dominant force in youth competitions, just as the men did before ending their senior drought at UEFA EURO 2008. And many of the players behind those victories, as well as coach Jorge Vilda, have graduated to the senior team, widely fancied to reach their first final in England and confirm their nation's stellar status.
Best UEFA competition performance
Senior: UEFA Women's EURO semi-finals (1997)
Youth: UEFA Women's Under-19 Championship winners (2004, 2017, 2018), UEFA Women's U17 Championship winners (2010, 2011, 2015, 2018)
Other honours
Youth: FIFA U-17 Women's World Cup winners (2018)
Role model
Among the youngest players in the squad when Spain ended a 16-year finals absence at UEFA Women's EURO 2013, Virginia Torrecilla underwent surgery in May 2020 for a brain tumour. Her recovery, and return for Atlético de Madrid in the Super Cup in January, have been truly inspiring.
"They would tell me that I would be able to play again. My priority was my recovery, my health and above all else to live, but there comes a moment when they tell you it will pass. With that came my motivation to play football again and be the Virginia I was before."
Milestone moments
On the pitch…
Spain's many youth successes have made them a force to be reckoned with, but it was Barcelona's stunning 4-0 Women's Champions League final win against Chelsea on 16 May 2021 that really turned heads. Eleven Spanish internationals featured for Barça, which is why many believe La Roja will be winning senior titles soon.
…and off it
Even before Barcelona's recent Camp Nou exploits, a then world-record club crowd of 60,739 packed the Metropolitano for their league game at Atlético in March 2019. The game captured global headlines and was a key moment in Spain's emergence as a hotbed of women's football.
Game changer
Alexia Putellas claimed a hat-trick of UEFA, FIFA and Ballon d'Or individual awards in 2021, crystalising Spain's rise. The attacking midfielder played in front of those world-record crowds in 2019 and 2022, and a decade ago was part of the two U17 EURO successes that kick-started Spain's youth dominance. Now Spain's most-capped player, Alexia is the standard-bearer for a generation rising to the top, with more cohorts of youth talents waiting in line to keep them there. Her injury on the eve of the tournament was especially cruel, but her influence within the squad remains.
Here and now
A changed landscape
Irene Paredes, a Women's Champions League winner and playing at her third Women's EURO, assesses the development the game has made in Spain.
"We were an amateur team and now we are professional. In Spain, the teams have become professional, and the players are better prepared. We have everything to allow us to fully focus on football. Previously, that wasn’t the case, it’s a totally different team. Before, we had to play against the big teams. Now, we can go toe-to-toe with anyone.
"Every year, football in Spain improves. I was abroad for five years and the change has been significant in terms of the competition and, above all, the players, with the effort and impetus that the clubs are putting in. We still need more to make the league more competitive but there has been a lot of change, we just need to strive for more."
Joining the game in Spain
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Find out how to play where you are with the help of #WePlayStrong.
Trailblazers exhibition
"Trailblazers" is a unique exhibition that showcases the work of European artists given a blank canvas to celebrate women’s football. UEFA invited artists from participating nations in this summer’s tournament to create an image inspired by the game in their country. Spain's representative is Genie Espinosa: "I wanted to talk about fierce women playing hard and enjoying a sport which has been mainly male for so many years. It’s out of the question how good they are and giving them more space to grow and be seen is amazing! I love Alexia Putellas, she's so amazing and strong."
Investing for the future
Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF)'s women's football strategy
Accelerating the development of women’s football is a key priority for the RFEF. The association hopes the inspirational record of its women’s national teams will help make football more popular than basketball among young girls.
At junior level, Spain won the FIFA Women’s U17 World Cup in 2018 and has claimed four of the last 11 UEFA European Women’s U17 European Championship trophies. At the 2019 World Cup in France, Spain were only eliminated by the narrow score of 2-1 against eventual champions theUnited States in the round of 16.
The RFEF has also taken two steps to ensure there is a clear career path for female professional footballers in Spain:
* Granting professional status to the top two tiers of Spanish women’s league football;
* Establishing a national minimum salary for women playing in the top flight.
Women's Football Development Programme (WFDP)
Since 2010, UEFA's WFDP has provided associations with funding and tools to increase participation, improve standards and build infrastructure to help keep the female game growing. One example of a project funded by the WFDP programme in Spain is…
Women's grassroots development (2017–19)
As part of its women's grassroots development programme, Spain focused on regional competitions with national championships for women's U12, U15 and U17 regional teams. The aim was to enable national coaches to reach and evaluate all the country's licensed female players, with a view to potentially integrating them in the national teams.
The number of registered female players increased by 12%, while 15% of the players who took part in the competitions went on to represent national teams, with the national coaches maintaining direct and continuous contact with regional coaches to follow the players' development.