Just a year ago, neither Spain nor France knew what it was like to play in the final of a major tournament. Today the Spanish national team is the reigning world champion, has the ticket to its first Olympic Games in its pocket and is 90 minutes away from proclaiming itself the first winner of the women’s Nations League. The road has been long, and full of stones, but these footballers are ready to continue making history. They never get tired of knocking down walls and the next goal is to beat France, one of the few teams that they have never beaten, neither in an official game nor in friendlies. It’s been a while since their paths crossed. Five years have passed since the last meeting, in a pre-World Cup friendly in France that would end 2-0 for Wales. In an official match, their last precedent was in the group stage of the 2013 European Championship in Sweden, with a defeat thanks to a goal by Wendie Renard.
The captain is the great absence of the French selection in this Final Four of the Nations League, on leave due to a muscle injury. Without her, the veterans Eugénie Le Sommer and Amandine Henry are the leaders of this dressing room that has scorers such as Marie-Antoinette Katoto, Kadidiatou Diani or Grace Geyoro.
It will be the first final in a major tournament for France, who have not made it past the quarter-finals in the last four World Cups. “It is a page in the history of French women’s football that is being opened”, confessed Hervé Renard after qualifying for the final. The furthest they had gone so far was at Euro 2022, when they came close to reaching the final, but Germany ended their dreams by defeating them (2-1) in the semi-finals. On Friday, the French took their revenge by leaving the Germans out of the final of the Nations League. Her next challenge is to beat the reigning world champion. An “unstoppable team”, recognized Renard in the preview.
Since the French coach arrived on the bench, things have improved in a selection that had gone through internal problems under the baton of Corinne Diacre. Before the World Cup, heavyweights in the dressing room such as Renard, Katoto or Diani resigned from the selection due to disagreements with the national team at the time. They demanded improvements and their federation listened to them and ended up dismissing Diacre and appointing Hervé Renard as his successor. “Spain was deservedly world champion. They are the ones who played the most beautiful football”, praised the coach in the preview, and emphasized that the Spanish team “scores a lot of goals, but also scores”. “Aitana is a remarkable player, but above all they are a collective”, assured Renard.
In the Spanish ranks, it remains to be revealed who will be the two dismissed from Montse Tomé for the grand final. Logic dictates that they are the same as in the semi-finals, Tere Abelleira and Alexia Putellas, who have not yet received the medical discharge, but the Asturian will play the trick, will not publicly give the final list until today and will exhaust the deadline to the maximum of UEFA, which allows registration of the list until 23.59 h the day before the match.
Today, in La Cartuja, they are also hoping to mark a historic milestone in the stands. If against the Netherlands the Sevillian stadium recorded a record number of spectators (21,856 fans) despite the change of venue at the last minute, for the final against France on Monday afternoon, more than 29,000 tickets had already been issued , so everything points to a new attendance record being broken in a match of the national team in Spanish territory.
