With a year of delay due to the covid, the European Championship in England starts today and does so with the worst possible news. Alexia Putellas, the best player in the world, tore her cruciate ligaments yesterday, three days after Spain's debut. A real blow for the tournament, for the national team and for Barcelona, which will lose its star between six and nine months. The midfielder was injured in the final stretch of yesterday's training at the Bisham Abbey facilities, where the team is concentrated, and from the first minute the worst was feared. The intense pain of the soccer player already presaged what the medical tests would later confirm: rupture of the anterior cruciate ligament of her left knee. A very important loss and that is added to that of Jenni Hermoso, also due to injury, in mid-June. Spain will have to face the European Championship without its historical top scorer and without the player with the most caps, the Ballon d'Or.
UEFA allows changes to the squad up to 24 hours before their debut in the event of covid or serious injury. In this way, Vilda has until tomorrow (6pm) to communicate who she is calling to relieve Alexia. Everything indicates that this will be Real Sociedad striker Amaiur Sarriegi, who was one of the coach's discards on the final list. With Alexia out, Mariona could be the one to share the midfield with Patri Guijarro and Aitana Bonmatí. The Balearic soccer player also has some discomfort and on Sunday she trained on the sidelines, along with Lucía García, although both returned to work with the group yesterday.
Spain reached the European Championship among the favorites to win the tournament, but it will be necessary to see how they emotionally recover from the loss of their flagship player with two days to go before their debut against Finland. This will be the most accessible duel of the three, as Spain has been framed in a real group of death in which they will also face Germany, eight times European champion, and Pernille Harder's Denmark. To access the quarterfinals, Jorge Vilda's side must finish the group stage in the top two. There they would face, a priori, England or Norway, two other teams that are candidates for the title.
It will not be an easy road, not at all, and this edition is called to be the closest in history. The rise of women's football in recent years has only raised the level of European leagues and the players who compete in them. The public is also responding like never before and in the last year attendance records have been broken in many countries, with the Camp Nou registering the largest attendance in the history of women's football worldwide (91,468 spectators against Wolfsburg). This European Championship has also broken all records by selling more than half a million tickets, twice as many as in 2017. Tonight's opening match between England and Austria at Old Trafford (9pm, RTVE), for which there are no tickets left, It will be a record attendance at a European Championship with more than 70,000 spectators in the stands.
At the economic level there will be substantial improvements. UEFA has doubled prize money for teams and introduced performance bonuses for the first time in a women's tournament. Thus, Spain will charge more just for participating this year (600,000 euros), than for having reached the quarterfinals in 2017 (500,000). With the aim of "prioritizing the development of women's football throughout Europe", UEFA will pay the clubs that contribute players to the European Championship, something that is already done in the men's competition, at a rate of 500 euros for each player and day that Stay focused on your selection.
More money, more public, more favourites... England's is called to be the best European Championship in history but, sadly, it will be without the best soccer player in the world on the pitch.
