Jorge Vilda (Madrid, 1981) grew up breathing football. His father, Ángel Vilda, was a physical trainer for teams like Cruyff’s Barça and Luis Aragonés’ Atlético. The youngest of the Vilda confesses that living from within all that left a mark on him. He played in the Barcelona fry, where he coincided with Xavi Hernández and was trained by Xavi Llorens. He started on the women’s soccer bench in 2010 and went through all the lower categories until he took control of the senior Spanish team in 2015, with the departure of Ignacio Quereda.
Spain arrives at the European Championship (from July 6 to 31) with the favorite poster hanging. Something that seems to bother the coach…
It’s not anger, it’s reality. We are aware that we have generated expectations for good work and results, but we must know where we come from and where we are. It is the fourth time that we are going to the final phase of a major championship, there are teams that have much more experience than us. We are going with the best team that has ever reached a European Championship, yes, but everything that is around, this optimism taken to the extreme, does not add up to achieve what we want, which is to have a great tournament.
Do you share the opinion of Alexia Putellas when she says that there is a lack of competitiveness in the First Iberdrola?
I have believed for a long time that in order for there to be a higher level and to be more even, the solution is to reduce the size of the League, as is done in other countries. Thus, the players who compete in the Champions League or who play with their national teams could also reduce their load of matches and arrive fresher. I don’t know how it will go in the future, but I think we are a bit behind.
Which countries are ahead of us?
The clear example is the English league, they have more equality between all the teams, they all meet very specific requirements as foreign players, in terms of the joint level of the sale of the package of both the First and Second divisions.
Then there is the French league, which has two clubs that are above it and I think it is because of the investment that has been behind it for many years. With the French I think it can happen a bit like with ours, that there are one or two teams that are above and that the others do not compete excessively, but there is a strong physical demand that we still lack here. But I think that it is supplemented by football, here there are teams that, to my way of understanding football, play much better than the teams in the French league.
Then there is the German that has always maintained a level, but I think it is not a league on the rise and the Italian that still needs to grow, but I do see that they are investing. And without forgetting Mexico. They are betting very strongly on women’s football, both in the League and at the Federation level and that is why people are going there as we are seeing.
Do you feel that the postponement of the European Championship due to covid has favored them?
Although it has been a long time, it is a year in which all the players have been evolving positively, have gained experience, added international caps… there are also youngsters who have emerged and have entered the national team with a bang. I think that this summer we are going to have a better team than we would have had last summer, yes.
Does Spain arrive in the best situation in which it has ever reached a final phase?
Before we were Cinderellas, in the last World Cup we realized that we could look the other teams in the eye and compete. The United States played us in the round of 16, which would later become world champions and I think that if it had not been like that we would have gone further by level and by what the team did and now, yes, I think that we arrived at the best moment ever.
Two surprises stood out in his pre-list. The first, the absence of Claudia Zornoza.
We are aware of the season that Claudia has done, it has been the year in which she has exploded. But in a national team, what we need is to have a theoretical starting team with players who we know can be there for 90 minutes and players who can replace them. With the players who have come we have the midfield well covered and I had to make a decision.
The other novelty was the inclusion of the young Salma Paralluelo, from Villarreal.
She is a differential player. She is not only the speed of movement, but she has soccer speed because she has quality. She is left-handed, she can play on the left wing, she has also been playing up front with another player next to her and that versatility is important for us. We believe that she can contribute and she has a chance to be among the 23.
Barça is concerned about the wear and tear on Patri Guijarro, the only defensive midfielder on the list. What other soccer players could develop that role?
It’s not just Patri, there are many players who have played many games. spare parts? The first thing is that the national team is not a slave to a system, we can go on to play with two midfielders and a playmaker; with four in midfield… we have different variants and that enriches the way of playing without changing the essence. And yes, there are players who can occupy this position like Irene Guerrero or Laia Aleixandri.
Who is the favorite to win the European Championship?
I think this may be the year of France. You are putting together a great team. They have great players on an individual level, but they have never managed to put together a united team and I think the coach this year can do it. Yes, she has left out two players who in theory should have been on the list, but you never know, the team reacts anyway and I think we are going to have a very powerful France.
Someone else?
England as hosts; Germany more than what we have been able to see lately, from experience, from baggage, from inertia. Because they have won less the last one, the previous six in a row. Then we have a Sweden that has just been runner-up in the Olympic Games and that is a very well-armed team. It has always been a very difficult selection to win and on top of that this year they have players with differential talent. I think Norway has two of the best players in the world and that at any moment that gives you championships. Holland comes from being runner-up in the world and champion of Europe. I think there are five-six-seven contenders and options.
You, who know grassroots football very well, how has the Spanish footballer changed in recent years?
It has changed a lot. You see the U-15 player with a different sports education, the little players who already come with a tactical and learning base and you can talk about concepts that were impossible to talk about before. They talk to you about fixing, about space between lines… and that leads you to think that they have coaches and trainers next to them who are of the highest level. That on the one hand, on the other, at a morphological level they already start to play before I think it’s the key to being good. They used to start playing football very late. And thirdly, that those who stand out can see a professional future and this stimulates you more to continue playing. Before if they played it was simply for the love of the sport and now they see a professional future.
It has also been improved in the preparation of the absolute. What improvements have you introduced compared to the last World Cup, for example?
We will have a hypervari chamber to recover earlier, we will train in hypoxia, we will also have a laser… all the means that a top-level men’s team can have, we are going to have. In addition to expanding the team with two more analysts, another assistant on the coaching staff, a third physiotherapist… It’s a fairly large delegation.
His father was a physical trainer for big teams. How do you remember that stage? Has it ended up influencing you?
Living the entire time of the ‘Dream Team’ from within marked me. I was also able to be close to great coaches like Mourinho, Luis Aragonés… Being able to listen to them makes me feel privileged. All have ended up marking me, but there is a special stage, which impacted me when I was young, and that is experiencing that explosion of Cruyff and a different way of thinking about football, which I have later tried to express in my teams.
They are not the only proper names from his childhood linked to Barcelona…
I coincided with Xavi Hernández in fry. Even then he was a reference, I also played as a midfielder and I looked at him and tried to reproduce him in my own way [laughs] and now as a coach I also follow him.
And he was trained by another myth from La Masia, Xavi Llorens.
It was in the fry too, when Xavi started on the bench. I have very good memories of that stage, he was the pioneer and if Barça for women is what it is today, Xavi Llorens has a lot to do with it.
