“We have not been up to the task, but if there is someone responsible, it is me”. With these words the Spanish coach, Jorge Vilda, intoned the mea culpa after the defeat this Monday against Japan (4-0). This win was the worst result for the coach since he has been in charge of the team. It was the great signal, but not the only one.

The players also accepted their mistakes as soon as the match was over. Four kickbacks were enough to prove the lack of solidity of the team. Misa Rodríguez, the starting goalkeeper, who until yesterday had managed to keep a clean sheet, acknowledged that “we knew what we were up against, but we did not expect such a result. We have needed to shoot, face more, it has not been our party. Now that we have time to improve, work, analyze what we have failed in”. His teammate Aitana Bonmatí, who had completed 50 caps as an international, added: “The result says it all, it was not our best match. Japan has taken advantage of the spaces to kill us against. Each counterattack has been a goal. We apologize, we are not proud of what we have done on the pitch.”. After the wins against Costa Rica and Zambia, after this game the image of the Spanish team is touched. It is evident that there is still a lot to correct and work on.

a weak defense

A weak defense was seen on the field of play, with an Irene Paredes who until now had acted as a lock, but yesterday it seemed that nerves had betrayed. His teammate Rocío Gálvez, who made her debut taking the place of Ivana Andrés, who was low due to discomfort, it was noted that the game was weighing on her. There was also a lack of a leader, someone to take the reins and join the lines to avoid disaster, but no one appeared.. “The team is screwed because losing a game and the way we have done it hurts,” admitted Paredes.

Vilda's team controlled possession throughout the match, but it was of no use to them, as they were unable to create any danger or even get close to Ayaka Yamashita's goal.. They only shot twice on goal in the whole game, once in each half, and it's not like Japan had many more chances, but it was more effective.. Tere Abelleira spoke about these data and the image of the team, saying: “Five days ago we weren't so good and now we are not so bad.. It may be a point to correct errors and that it does not happen to us again. We've all had mistakes, but we're in time to make amends for the round of 16.”

Mariona Caldentey also wanted to show her face, stating: “The perfect match came out for them and we were left with the frustration that nothing came out for us. Luckily little changes, because we will be in the round of 16. There is a lot to learn, a lot to improve and we are going to go after Switzerland with everything”.

Qualified despite defeat

The damages are minor, since the classification was already achieved. A draw would have been enough for Spain to finish as the group leader and hypothetically have more affordable crosses.

Now Switzerland awaits this Saturday (7:00, La 1), which has been first in group A. Perhaps it would have been worse to face off against Norway, a team that is more complicated on paper. “I am convinced that the team has a lot of anger and that it will turn into desire and face the World Cup qualifiers. It's time to digest this defeat and prepare for these round of 16. I know that we will go out against Switzerland with everything”, concluded Vilda. However, even if they go out for all the doubts, they are still in the air, and it is that Spain still does not seem prepared to face the big teams. This could be a problem if the pass to the quarterfinals is achieved, since the rival would foreseeably be the United States, a team that already eliminated Spain in the last World Cup.

First it was Cristiano Ronaldo, then Benzema, then Kanté and Mané. Saudi Arabia is amassing as much soccer talent as its money can afford. I mean, a lot. The Arab country is immersed in a stage that perfectly defines Sportswashing: washing the image of a state through sport. You already know the recent history of the Saudi nation: it organizes competitions and celebrates Formula 1 events, tennis, MotoGP, rallies, horses, basketball…. Of everything. But the next step in his vaunted 'Vision 2030' is football, a cult sport, never better said, in a country devoted to Islam. They have taken the king of sports by the arm and they are not going to let go, millions through. Because while we talk about how they are going to change the market, they are already doing it, tweaking the reality of European football and its players, offering salaries and transfer figures that are out of all logic.

“They are being a boom in the market,” admits the agent for soccer players Álvaro Navazo, from the company You First. “The money there is outrageous. For those it does change their lives. Those who go from earning 15 to 45 million a year, I suppose life will be more or less the same,” they admit.

Arabia's entry into the European market has been as unexpected as it was wild. They have come with everything. “That they sign veteran stars like Cristiano or Benzema does not surprise me, but that they take Koulibaly, Kanté or Ziyech does,” reflects Navazo, who has had a relationship with Saudi football and brought Pablo Machín there. “The clubs here cannot compete. The Saudis themselves know that people go there for money. They are not deceived.”

“They are sowing to organize the World Cup”

In 2023, Arabia has gone a step further in its sports policy. Vision 2030, created in 2016 by Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman, marked as a first step the obtaining of sporting events and then the improvement and exploitation of their own competitions.. we have reached that point. “They are paving the way to organize a World Cup. Through sport, they whitewash their human rights problems and their authoritarian regime,” sums up Toni Roca, director of the Himnus specialized soccer firm and the Sports Law Institute.. “People see that Cristiano and Benzema are there and they think 'well, it shouldn't be so bad',” he added.

After the signing of Cristiano by Al-Nassr, this June Saudi Arabia changed the reality of eight clubs in its League. The Public Investment Fund took ownership of Al-Hilal, Al-Nassr, Al-Ittihad and Al-Ahli, the four most powerful teams. In other words, he privatized them with the aim of attracting more investment, accumulating even more money and convincing more stars.. In addition, it transferred the ownership of four other clubs to large companies in the country. The Al-Qadisiyah, from the Dammam area, the third largest in the nation, is now owned by the Saudi oil company Aramco; Al-Diriyah, from the city of the same name, has become part of the Diriyah Gate Development Authority, the company created by the government to boost the image of the area; Al-Ula, from the Medina region, has been run since this month by the Royal Commission for Al-Ula, another company created by the Saudi government to exploit that area of the country; and Al-Suqoor Club FC, which plays in the third division of Saudi soccer, is now owned by NEOM, Saudi's big project to create a smart city in Tabuk province.

These teams, strategically located in the East, West and North of Arabia, will not be the only ones to be privatized, as Saudi Sports Minister Abdulaziz bin Turki Al-Faisal has announced: “There will be more at the end of this year. I hope this invites more private sector companies to invest in the sports sector.”

“F1 is done here and nobody has a moral dilemma”

Arabia, which arrived later than Kuwait, Iraq or the United Arab Emirates to participate in a soccer World Cup, has also been slow to appear on the world sports scene. Qatar has already held its own World Cup and the Emirates is behind the current European champion. they need to speed up. First came the purchase of Newcastle and now the globalization of their league, which they want to make “one of the ten best in the world”. “The agents try to convince the players not to leave. You earn money, yes, but sportingly you're dead.”

The Saudi government's plan is to quadruple the income generated by the championship, from 120 million euros a year now to the 600 projected for 2030, multiplying the value of the league to 4,000 million dollars, they calculate. “In China they limited the issue of transfers, but here they are not interested. The Asian Confederation would have to create a Financial Fair Play like that of UEFA to limit them, but they are not interested,” explains Roca.

All while the country is involved in a social and cultural transformation that still does not convince many people. “Have we not taken players to China or Russia? I do not justify it, but why is this standard set in some countries and not in others? Formula 1 is done in Arabia and nobody has a moral dilemma there,” reasons Navazo , who confesses that “99% of players don't have that moral dilemma”. “They value the economic, that people are serious and organized and that their family is well.”

Laura Fuertes remembers that at the age of 16 she wanted to start boxing and she received so much support at home, so much understanding, so much encouragement that her father, Manuel, signed up with her.. “In my gym, Asturbox, in Gijón, there was an offer that lasted three months and we both went. He left it quickly, but I stayed”, the first Spanish boxer classified for the Olympic Games recalls in conversation with EL MUNDO. Before her, since the 2024 Paris Games, there were 48 male boxers in competition and up to three medalists -Enrique Rodríguez, Faustino Reyes and Rafa Lozano twice-, but no women. You can't talk about equally, precisely.

Is boxing a macho sport? Depends how you look at it. As I was saying, I have been lucky to receive the support of my family and in my gym I have always been valued. I would say that no boxer thinks that women are inferior because they see what we train, what we suffer. But among the public there is everything. Sometimes you do have to put up with sexist comments: they tell me that boxing is not something feminine or they ask me why I fight with this girlish face.

From Monteana, a tiny district of Gijón, next to the ArcelorMittal blast furnaces, a working area, Fuertes had tried everything before boxing.. He practiced swimming until he burned out, like so many others, he dedicated a couple of seasons to basketball and tennis, he discovered karate and finally he got into the ring with all the intention of competing, of making a name for himself.. “I know there are a lot of people who box recreationally now, just for training, but I am very competitive.. There is nothing that gives you the adrenaline that the competition gives you. The truth is that before boxing I tried many things, but it had been a while since it caught my attention.. I watched videos on Youtube and Instagram, I followed him on television. One day my mother took me to an evening and it was already clear to me”, says Fuertes.

On his way there was a move, to the Madrid High Performance Center, in 2019, and a disappointment. Before the Tokyo 2020 Games, she was already prepared to be an Olympic, she already had the movements, she already had the experience, but the covid pandemic canceled a Pre-Olympic and she could not even apply for the place. So this time, at the first opportunity, at the European past in Krakow, bingo!

“If I won the bronze match, I had a ticket for Paris 2024 and in the second round I already knew I was winning.. When I finished I started crying, I came down from the ring crying and I didn't stop crying even when they interviewed me. It was very exciting,” she recounts. She needed that classification. Because perhaps it was her only chance to be an Olympic. Despite the 'boom' of recreational boxing, the sport is in crisis and will not make it to the Los Angeles 2028 Games. the stigma of violence persecutes him “You have to change that vision, but it will not happen from one day to the next. We fight with protections and with great security. Boxing is not a fight in the street”, defends Fuertes, who believes that his sport can still return to the times when it created stars and filled pavilions. Not surprisingly, the evenings organized by Ibai Llanos are a success year after year.

These evenings are either a problem or an opportunity for boxing. Both. They give us a lot of visibility and I'm sure there are people who are curious. Perhaps there are those who sign up for a gym after seeing an evening of Ibai. On the other hand, they give a little anger. The influencers who fight barely spend four months on it and, despite this, they fill stadiums and have millions of viewers on Twitch. It would be nice to intersperse celebrity fights with professional fights so that the public, especially young people, see what boxing really is.