The World Cup that revolutionized everything: Spain is proclaimed champion with a sporting and social lesson

It was 12:29 on Sunday, August 20, 2023. Six million Spaniards stopped suffocating the heat on the beach or the pool to sit in front of the television to watch the second most important match in the history of national football being played in Sydney.. Spain was playing the World Cup final against England and the feeling of living a unique moment enveloped everything. A left-footed shot by Olga Carmona proclaimed the Spanish National Team World Champion, a dream that no one would have imagined just a year before.. It was a single goal, as solitary and iconic as Andrés Iniesta's in 2010, which caused an explosion. Not only was it the most important triumph, it was a revolution.

Carmona had shattered a glass ceiling at a time when more girls want to play soccer. Licenses are growing and the F League and professionalization are trying to take off but, despite Alexia Putellas' two Ballon d'Ors and FC Barcelona's Champions League, there was a lack of great references and collective successes.

Spain, led by Jorge Vilda, went through purgatory before conspiring to forget everything that happened after being expelled in the quarterfinals of the Euro 2022 Championship. On September 23, 15 players declared themselves ineligible to be eligible by letter.. Soccer players like Aitana Bonmatí, Mapi León or Patri Guijarro were not emotionally prepared. Captain Irene Paredes and Jenni Hermoso were not signatories, but they demanded changes, and Alexia Putellas did not sign her signature either because she was recovering from the torn cruciate ligament she suffered a few months before..

The RFEF, with Luis Rubiales at the helm, understood the footballers' position as an ordeal. Their demands for greater professionalization were only partially attended to and always under the supervision of Jorge Vilda, absolutely supported by the president of the Federation.. The 15 disappeared, there was an election of new captains and with victories like the historic one against the United States in El Sadar they wanted to bury a problem that was regretted. With the approach of the World Cup, the hatchet was buried. The majority of the players once again declared themselves fit to be selected and Vilda, in addition to Paredes, Hermoso and Putellas, included Aitana, Mariona and Ona Batlle on the World Cup list.

The open wounds closed during the championships in Australia and New Zealand where there was only one stumble. Spain started by beating Costa Rica (3-0) and Zambia (5-0) but, in the last game of the group stage, they received a very hard blow. Japan, one of the four teams that had won the World Cup, handed them a painful 4-0. It was July 31 and the lesson was learned. In the round of 16 they got rid of Switzerland (1-5), in the quarterfinals against the Netherlands (2-1) and in the semifinals against Sweden (2-1), then number 1 in the world ranking.. In the final, Sarina Wiegman's England awaited them, the same team that expelled them in the European Championship and on the verge of reaching the semi-final.

Olga Carmona's goal did not reflect the superiority in a match in which the Spanish were able to score the second with balls from Salma Paralluelo, an emerging star in the championship, that licked the post and a penalty missed by Jenni Hermoso. The Vallecana was freed from that weight with the end of the match, but she began to carry a bigger weight on her shoulders.

The non-consensual kiss

The non-consensual kiss that Rubiales gave him at the trophy ceremony tarnished the feat and gave way to pressure for Jenni Hermoso to save the president by downplaying what the courts are investigating as a sexual assault.. The president's defiant stance before an assembly that, shamefully, acclaimed him was the fuse that blew everything up. #SeAcabó went around the world and caused FIFA to suspend the almighty Rubiales. In his fall he dragged Jorge Vilda along and the RFEF, now with Pedro Rocha at the helm, appointed Montse Tomé as coach.

Participating in the World Cup success as Vilda's second, she was not going to have the peace of mind of managing a talented group of winners. He also had to pay for his mistakes and defuse his own bombs.. His first summons angered a player who had once again said that they would not attend the national team until the RFEF made changes and was a safe place.. At the Oliva concentration, with the intermediation of the Higher Sports Council, a truce was signed with the objective set on the Paris Games.

Tomé is still on the bench and Markel Zubizarreta has joined to create the necessary peace to be able to take steps in the necessary renewal that will allow the best generation of Spanish footballers to continue making history.