The Spanish team will face the Netherlands in the first semifinal of the Nations League, which will be played at home. A victory would secure Spain's ticket to the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. The other semifinal will be played by France and Germany. The French team, as host of the Games, already has an Olympic place guaranteed, so if they reach the final, the second ticket would go to the third finalist.
The draw has meant that both the semi-final and a hypothetical final will be played on Spanish territory. The match against the Dutch team will be on February 23 and five days later, on the 28th, the final and the match for third place will be played.
Spain has avoided France and Germany, two rivals it has never beaten in a pure draw that has paired it with Damaris Egurrola's Netherlands. The Basque soccer player, whose mother is Dutch, was the big star of the Dutch team's qualification with two goals in added time with which they overthrew England.
The elimination of the current European champion and world runner-up was one of the surprises of the new Nations League, which also left Sweden, a semi-finalist in the last two major tournaments, out of the final four.
The Netherlands does not have its big star, Vivianne Miedema, injured, but it has the top scorer in the A League, Beerensteyn, who adds 6 goals to her personal tally. Spain and the Netherlands met this summer in the quarterfinals of the World Cup in Australia and New Zealand, where 'the red' won in extra time, advancing towards the title that they would end up winning in Sydney after beating England in the final.
The second round will be between France and Germany. The French team has already secured its ticket to the Olympic Games, so the only incentive will be to write its name as the first winner in the history of the Nations League. The French team has never managed to shine in major tournaments and will seek to take advantage of a Germany that is not experiencing its best moment. Exited from the World Cup in the group stage, the humiliation cost Martina Voss-Teclkenburg her job and they hope to once again be the team that terrified the entire continent.
The draw was attended by the Spanish coach, Montse Tomé. The Asturian coach knew the path that awaits her to seal her ticket to what would be the first Olympic Games in Spain. Tomé arrives highly questioned after the constant controversies in the three concentrations that she has directed since she took over from Jorge Vilda at the head of the senior team. The last one, the fight with Aitana Bonmatí at half-time of the match against Italy that ended with Spain leaving with ten in the second half and conceding a goal. A situation that once again revealed the turbulence experienced in the Federation and that was complicated by the injury of Irene Paredes. Barça had informed Tomé's team that the Basque center was not yet ready to compete after having been without training for two weeks due to complicated tonsillitis, but the coach started her in Spain's first game. She missed the second match and upon her return to Barcelona, the Catalan club reported that she was suffering from a muscle injury.
