This Wednesday, the national coach of the women’s team, Montse Tomé, offered the squad list for Spain’s next matches in the Nations League and included striker Jenni Hermoso in it. The Madrid native, a player for the Mexican Pachuca, thus returns to the national team after the waters have calmed down within the Spanish Football Federation (RFEF). She returns after both the national team’s coaching staff and Tomé herself spoke with the soccer player, according to what the coach said in the subsequent press conference. “There was no problem at that time,” she said regarding a first call from which she left her out. “We made the decision to protect her, because we thought that was what was best for her,” she reflected, as she already did then. The decision, the coach explains, was a sporting one, the same as now, because “sports decisions encompass many things.” A little over a month ago, Hermoso barely had match rhythm and monopolized all the spotlights; Today, the coach warns, not so much anymore (or so she hopes), and she also accumulates four goals in three good games with her team.
The list of 23 is completed by a list of players, among which are many World Cup winners, including the leaders of the Red Alexia Putellas and Aitana Bonmatí, the still captain Irene Paredes or those already incorporated into Tomé’s latest list, such as Amaiur Sarriegi , Lucía García, Laia Aleixandri or Inma Gabarro. In addition, Ivana Andrés and Salma Paralluelo return to the squad, who were absent from the previous appointments due to injury. The novelty is Anna Torrodà, from Levante. The team will face Italy next Friday the 27th, in Pasarón (Pontevedra), at 5:45 p.m. And on Tuesday the 31st, to Switzerland, in La Rosaleda, Málaga. Both games are from the Nations League: Spain is first in its group and must maintain the lead to continue aspiring to the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
Hermoso has become a symbol of the fight of Spanish footballers to improve their working conditions and banish sexist behavior from sports institutions after the president of the RFEF, Luis Rubiales, planted a kiss on her mouth without consent in full celebrations of the World Cup in Australia and New Zealand. The case must be resolved in court after she filed a complaint for sexual assault and coercion. But in the meantime, the competition continues. “Now we believe that there is less focus and that we will be able to talk more about football,” predicts Montse Tomé.
The #seacabó and #estamoscontigoJenni went around the world while the protagonist continued from Mexico, where she plays with Pachuca, the first two games of her teammates after the title and the subsequent tsunami in Las Rozas. Tomé did not include Hermoso in her first call to “protect her,” in her own words. “We have believed that the best way to protect it in this call is like this, but we are counting on it,” he said. Although she did not see it the same way: “Protect me from what or who?” She asked herself in a statement in which she stated that there was a “strategy of division and manipulation.”
This is the second list of the new coach, who took office at the beginning of September after the departure of the then coach, Jorge Vilda, accused of coercing Hermoso in the Rubiales case. Tomé had spent the last five years in the shadow of Vilda and had a difficult landing as a coach, especially after offering a first list in which she included 23 footballers who had previously declared rebellion and who did not want to wear the Red again until profound changes occurred in the federation.
That concentration, forced and in a tense setting like few others, marked precisely the starting point for the resolution of an unprecedented crisis in Spanish football. The soccer players, including two of those who already gave up playing in last summer’s World Cup, Mapi León and Patri Guijarro, met at a hotel in Oliva (Valencia). There, in long three-way meetings that lasted until five in the morning, the players, the federation and the president of the Higher Sports Council (CSD), Víctor Francos, who acted as mediator, reached an agreement for the constitution of a mixed commission with representation from all parties that would work to resolve the different agreements reached that long night.
Among these agreements was the demand of the soccer players that the federation be restructured, beyond the figure of the president, a position that at that time was already held by Pedro Rocha, Dolphin of Rubiales, who finally submitted his resignation. Since his dismissal, the aforementioned Jorge Vilda, the general secretary, Andreu Camps, the integrity director, Miguel García Caba, and also the communications director, Pablo García-Cuervo, have left the federation. The only two players who left the camp the next morning were Mapi and Guijarro, the same ones who still have not returned to the national team despite their unequivocal quality and leadership in Barcelona, their team. “They transmitted to me with total respect and freedom what they felt. And I told them that they were two important players and that I respect their decision not to be there. Steps have been taken, the changes in the federation are there. But I only want to call up players who want to be there, players who are convinced that they want to come and who want to compete with the national team. Our goal is to be in the Olympic Games for the first time,” the coach concluded.
The list of the 23 called by Tomé:
Goalkeepers: Misa Rodríguez, Cata Coll, Enith Salon; defenses: Ona Batlle, Ohiane Hernández, Irene Paredes, Ivana Andrés, Laia Aleixandri, María Méndez, Olga Carmona; midfielder: Tere Abelleira, Jenni Hermoso, Maite Oroz, Aitana Bonmatí, Alexia Putellas, Anna Torrodà, Salma Paralluelo, Mariona Caldentey, Inma Gabarro, Amaiur Sarriegi, Athenea Del Castillo, Esther González and Lucía García.
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