The revenge of Damaris Egurrola, the Dutch woman who collided with Vilda in the Spanish team

2023-08-07 04:14:08

A World Cup is the tournament in which all styles of football converge in one place. Is Damaris Egurrola Wienke (Orlando, 1999) a World Cup in itself. Born in the United States, to a Dutch mother and a Basque father, she made a youth academy in Spain, excelled at Athletic, and about to sign for Barcelona, ​​she decided to pack her bags, first to England (Everton), and then to France, where they now enjoy of her game at Olympique de Lyon after paying the clause, up to that moment, the highest for a Spanish player. She champion of Europe under-19 and runner-up in the world under-20 with the national team, she decided that with the absolute she would defend the shirt of her mother’s country.

His personal history is relevant in itself, adding incentive that it is the Netherlands, precisely, Spain’s next rival, this coming Friday (August 11), and for a place in the World Cup semifinals, no less.

And it is relevant because part of her journey around the world was fostered by the transfer policies in Spain at that time when women’s football was still a first draft of what it is today. In the Collective Agreement, a clause established that the clubs had to charge for training work of a player under 23 years of age who ended her contract with the team that was interested in signing her. A clause that Egurrola, and many other soccer players, found abusive, but that only she and three others took to court. At the head of this claim, Pablo Egurrola, father of Damaris, and that he already went through trials and bad union experiences when he was a professional pelotari in the United States. After a long strike and the closure of several frontons, he had to return to Spain, with a Damaris that he had turned seven years old.

The one who was also good at handball, but decided that soccer would take her further. “I played on the wing when I was young, but I think they realized I didn’t have much of a future there, so I switched to midfield, central defender and then midfielder,” he admitted to the FIFA page a few years ago.

Because after winning a great battle with the bureaucracy, which left her on the verge of withdrawing due to stress and feeling alone against the world, the player continued with another with the national team, in which she gradually gained her place with her performance in European clubs. She received insults for leaving Athletic, with whom she had won the league title in 2016. She was close to signing for Barcelona, ​​once both were free of unfair terms, but she never signed. she arrived on Everton, in the midst of a pandemic, so the passage through England was short, but substantial. Because the Lyon Olympics He bet on it in a big way and with the clause of 100,000 euros ahead. He already has a league title and a Champions League, from 2022. The French team’s commitment to this creative midfielder, who is doing very well in the air, is still there, renewed this July until 2027.

The decision

Throughout this process, she gradually became a prestigious and quality midfielder in the Spanish team. She helped win the European title in Northern Ireland with the under-19s in 2017, with Aitana Bonmatí and Patri Guijarro and Ona Batlle. She and she was a finalist in the 2018 France U-20 World Cup. She made her senior debut in a friendly, when she was 19 years old.

But, according to his version in an interview in ‘El Confidencial’, the call from Jorge Vilda to be confirmed in the senior team. According to the coach’s version, it was the player who rejected two calls.

“Being a coach does not give Jorge Vilda the right to lie and I could not wait for Spain any longer,” he said in the aforementioned medium. With offers on the table from both the United States and the Netherlands, he finally decided to stay with Oranje, where he has met youth idols such as Lee Martens. For her choice, she had the showcase: runner-up in Europe in 2009; European champion in 2017; runner-up in the world in 2019. She also tipped the balance at the insistence of the former Dutch coach, Mark Parsonsthe good relationship with the current player, Andries Jonker, and the encouragement of his dressing room partner Danielle van de Donk, whom he will possibly replace in Friday’s game against Spain due to the former’s suspension.

“Once I made that decision, I focused on bringing my game to the team. The teammates have felt very good with me from the first day, so it was very easy, “she said in an interview with ‘Forbes’ before wearing the orange shirt for the first time. “I’m glad I left [de España]», he pointed out to the newspaper ‘Naiz’ as a result of the 15 o’clock problem.

Oblivious to all that, she made her debut in a friendly in March 2022 in Groningen, the city where her mother was born (12-0 to Cyprus); and he played that summer in the European Championship, where Netherlands they fell in the quarterfinals against France (1-0 after extra time). After a season in which he dislocated his knee and won the league with Olympique, he is planted in Australia and New Zealand where he played 10 minutes against Portugal (1-0), 20 against the United States (1-1), 28 against Vietnam (7-0) and 15 against South Africa (2-0). To measure himself against what would have been his ‘natural’ team and those who were some of his teammates in lower categories in Spain on Thursday 11. And for a place in the semifinal of a World Cup.