Women’s team: Montse Tomé’s team is tested in a new cycle after the bitter taste of the Games | Soccer | Sports

In the Las Rozas Football City last Thursday the expectation was evident for Montse Tomé’s first call-up since the national team was shipwrecked in the summer at the Paris Olympic Games. La Roja returned from the French capital without a medal after losing to Germany in the fight for bronze, but above all after leaving a poor football image, nothing to do with the face it showed when it won the 2023 World Cup or the UEFA Nations League in February. That small fiasco gave rise to all kinds of speculations about the list with which the coach would begin the new cycle that opens this Friday with the friendly against Canada in Almendralejo (10:00 p.m., La1) and that ends with the European Championship in Switzerland next summer , which Spain aspires to win for the first time and after which the Asturian coach’s contract ends. Finally, Tomé dispensed with two important pieces for this start: the captain, Irene Paredes, and the Real Madrid starting goalkeeper, Misa Rodríguez, although it will be necessary to see if in the next appointments the absences continue or they are just a wake-up call. .

Paredes, 33 years old and with enormous ascendancy in the Red’s locker room, missed the first three games of the season due to a muscle injury, but the loss of the Basque center also comes after the level at which he performed in Paris—lower than usual—despite the fact that he had had a great season with Barça in which he won the League, Cup, Super Cup and Champions League. Misa (25) was even a starter with Jorge Vilda when Sandra Paños resigned from the national team during the so-called 15 crisis, in which 15 footballers decided in September 2022 to stop playing for Spain to protest the lack of professionalization of the team under the baton of the former coach. The Madrid goalkeeper, who has made some specific errors but is the second with the highest percentage of saves in the F League (85.7%, according to Opta) after Lola Gallardo (90.9%), lost her place in the World Cup. 2023 and since then, always as a substitute for Cata Coll, he had been in all of Tomé’s calls.

In the group mentioned by the Asturian, which also does not include the Ballon d’Or winner Aitana Bonmatí due to rest and the forward Salma Paralluelo due to injury, the drive of the young women Vicky López (18 years old, Barça), Jana Fernández (22 years old, Barça) stands out. ), Ana Tejada (22, Utah Royals), Amaiur Sarriegi (23, Real Sociedad) and Silvia Lloris (20, Atlético). The attacker txuri urdin She is the third top scorer in the F League with four goals in seven games, only behind Ewa Pajor (9) and Alexia Putellas (6), while Tejada has settled into the Utah Royals’ midfield after The American team will pay about 300,000 for her to Real in April, the largest amount ever paid for a Spanish player. The red-and-white defense and the two Barça players, like Tejada, were fundamental pieces in the national team’s youth ranks—they won World Cups and Euro Cups—and they increasingly enjoy more and more prominence in their clubs.

Vicky, chosen as the best soccer player in the U17 World Cup in which Spain triumphed two years ago, has so much talent and has accumulated so many records of precocity—the youngest to debut with the national team and with Barça, to score a goal in a classic, etc. .— that if it continues to progress as it is doing, it seems destined to soon be among the best in the world. This season started like a shot. She is the third player who gives the most key passes – deliveries that create opportunities for teammates – in the championship with 3.4 per game, only behind her Barcelona colleague Graham Hansen (3.48), the great candidate with Bonmatí to win the Ballon d’Or next Monday, and Real Madrid star Caroline Weir (3.43), according to Hudls StatsBomb.

The development of the young players can contribute in this cycle to a team in which the majority of the players have a lot of reel ahead of them. The average age of the starting team that faced Germany in the Games was 25.1 years, almost the same as the eleven that defeated France in the Nations League final (25.2) or the one that defeated England to win the World Cup in August 2023 (25.2). In addition, one of the oldest, Alexia Putellas (30 years old), double winner of the Ballon d’Or and another great reference in the locker room, is little by little rediscovering her best level after going through a road of the cross with injuries over the last two years. .

Tomé, who has incorporated Nacho Fernández into his team as an assistant – it is his first experience in football played by women after having worked with Bordalás at Getafe – after the departure of Javier Lerga to the U20 and U19 benches, has his disposition to all the Spanish soccer players with the exception of Mapi León. Barcelona’s formidable central defender is the only one of the 15 crisis who still does not want to return to La Roja, but her teammate Patri Guijarro—one of the best midfielders in the world—has already done so, while the young Barça attacker Claudia Pina —who has had a fantastic start to the season with four goals and three assists in eight games— and goalkeeper Lola Gallardo have shown themselves eligible. The technician, who was Vilda’s right hand but broke up with him after he applauded Luis Rubiales in the assembly in which he repeated five times that he was not going to resign because of the kiss with Jenni Hermoso after the World Cup final, has all the pieces except Mapi’s to correct the bad image of the Games and build a team that competes to win its first Euro.