Thursday, November 21, 2024, 11:32
While the Spanish men’s soccer team is a raft of oil in which everyone rows within Luis de la Fuente’s group, the women’s team led by Montse Tomé continues to be the house of trouble in which open fronts appear from time to time. All of this despite achieving glory in the last World Cup, as well as failure in the Games. In some, peace reigns, in others, wars continue to break out. A bad vibe that the Asturian coach seeks to put an end to, knowing that, as in the case of the Riojan coach, harmony is key.
Something has not completely healed in the world champion, and the latest fuss is the absence of part of the hard core, with Jenni Hermoso, who turns 35 in May next year, at the forefront of the search for a “balance in coexistence. The attacker of the Mexican Tigres, who received the Sócrates award during the Ballon d’Or gala for promoting the ‘Se Acabó’ movement, was joined by the losses of Irene Paredes, with great hierarchy on the field, and the goalkeeper Misa Rodríguez, something that at the same time former goalkeeper Santiago Cañizares, reminds him of the situation that he himself experienced when, after the 2006 World Cup, Luis Aragonés no longer counted on him, nor Raúl, nor Míchel Salgado.
The call for the friendlies against South Korea in Cartagena, on November 29, and against France in Nice, on December 3, raises dust after the top scorer in the history of La Roja placed an enigmatic and defiantly on his social networks: “Do not sell your soul to the devil.”
Some duels that will serve to face what is really serious in 2025, the start of the qualifying phase of the League of Nations, a tournament that they will try to revalidate after winning it in February against France. And already on the horizon the European Championship in Switzerland in summer. Everything indicates that none of the three will be part of Spain’s next successes due to recent estrangements. Something happens between the one who directs, the one who scores and the Barça center.
Montse Tomé does not count on anyone who is not another soccer player on the team. Jenni Hermoso is a symbol of female Spain along with Irene Paredes and Alexia Putellas. Three figures on whom much of the team’s growth revolves. References and legends of a group that has broken down barriers.
The mirror of Luis de la Fuente
The coach talks about readjustments, camaraderie and knowing how to be. Words that make it clear that something bothers you. She wants her players to add, both on and off the green, regardless of whether they have more or less minutes, as happens in the men’s game. «We have not given anything to anyone. I don’t want to say if these players haven’t fulfilled their promise. I am clear about what I want the team to be and what I like to see, that camaraderie, that knowing how to be, and I say it feeling it from the deepest depths.” In this sense, Tomé referred to the selection of the Haro coach: «It is a true example of team and coexistence. And with all that they have performance.
“I am here having a different role and accepting it or not, it is what I have to do,” Hermoso said during the Games. Essential in the last World Cup, she criticized in the same way as when Tomé left her off his first list, that one in the murky September of 2023, when a forced landing led her to handle the reins of the team, replacing Jorge Vilda. He excluded her with the argument of wanting to protect her from the noise generated by the non-consensual kiss on the nose that Rubiales gave her during the World Cup celebration. Tomé has been gradually giving her fewer minutes, subtracting her prominence until she disappears from the list. Embers of the past remain and it seems evident that there is something above sports. «We have been experiencing an exceptional situation for two years. I have some values, and the only way is self-demand,” stated the coach, who affirms that everything she does is in search of recovering that “maximum performance” that made the team reach the sky in Sydney as queens of women’s football.
