2023-08-17 08:11:46
BarcelonaDespite being only 22 years old, the football career of Catalina Thomas Coll (Portol, Mallorca, 2001) has already experienced a very hard blow: the rupture of the cruciate ligament in her left knee. The need to overcome such adversity at a crucial age to make a place in professional football is one of the reasons that have strengthened the character of a player whose pulse does not tremble either inside or outside of the playing fields. She can make her debut with the absolute Spanish national team in the qualifiers for a World Cup, contributing a remarkable performance, or be the leader when it comes to complaining to the security officials at the Philips Stadion in Eindhoven for not letting the Barça players celebrate with his fans the Champions League conquered a while before.
Cata suffered the serious ligament injury (in December 2020 she had already had one in the meniscus of her right knee which kept her out for three months) in a training session with the Blaugrana team in February 2022, just one year and six months ago . And he did not reappear until March this year, when he played the last few minutes in the victory over Valencia. Since then and until the World Cup he had only played two more official matches: against Alhama and Sporting de Huelva, keeping a clean sheet as starter in both cases.
The lack of minutes after the accident was not an impediment for the Spanish coach Jorge Vilda to call her up for the tournament that is being played in Australia and New Zealand and thus enter for the first time in a list of the absolute, leaving out was Sandra Paños, Barça’s starting goalkeeper, who had been one of the 15 players who had taken a step back when asking not to be called up to Spain until there were improvements in the conditions of the footballers.
Chip change in December 2022
“The knee injury was a very complicated moment for Cata, she had a very bad time,” Carlota Planas, her representative, tells ARA. “She doesn’t express her emotions very much and that makes everything cost a little more. Jana Fernández, who suffered the same injury during the same period, helped her a lot. They lived and went to recovery together,” he continues to explain. But Planas and Cata sat down in December 2022 in a cafe in Sant Joan Despí to turn the situation around. “What she is experiencing now is not luck. She decided to believe in something that was impossible. I asked her where she wanted to go and she told me that her dream was to be the starting goalkeeper for Barça and the Spanish national team. Then, to motivate her, we went goal by goal, because she is very impatient,” explains the founder of the Unik Sports Management agency.
And the impossible in December 2022 became possible in June 2023, when Vilda included Cata in the preliminary list for the World Cup and, subsequently, in the final list. The Barça goalkeeper found out she was part of the shortlist while she was in Malaga on holiday. At that time he didn’t even have the regulation gloves (with the new FIFA specifications) and customized gloves provided by Solo Porteros. The brand manufactured them at full speed and shipped them directly to New Zealand so they would arrive on time.
Sandra Paños and Misa Rodríguez sit
In any case, it was taken for granted that who would be under the posts during the World Cup games would be Misa Rodríguez, Real Madrid’s goalkeeper. The Canarian had been the one who had obtained the title after the resignation of the 15. And it left the start during the group phase. But the humiliating 4-0 defeat by Japan in the last of the three games, which cost Spain top place in the group, caused a change in Vilda’s plans.
Cata Coll started as a starter in the round of 16 against Switzerland. And he did not disappoint in the 1-5 victory that turned the fate of the selection upside down in this tournament. In fact, the goal that was scored was due to a mistake by Laia Codina, who made a back pass that was too strong and without looking where the goalkeeper was. Not much else Coll could do in the goals of Stefanie van der Gragt and Rebecka Blomqvist in the quarter-finals and semi-finals against the Netherlands and Sweden. They were two strong and well placed shots. In the three matches he has played so far in the World Cup, his performance has been remarkable. She was especially successful in the semi-finals, when she saved more than one opportunity from the Swedes, such as the shot from the mouth of the cannon that she took away from fellow Blaugrana Fridolina Rolfö when the score was still 0-0.
Will he also start at Barça?
“La Cata will also be a starter at Barça,” a voice from the Mallorcan’s environment told ARA. “She is one of the goalkeepers in the world with the best reflexes,” he adds. On the other hand, his environment assures that since December his involvement has improved in various aspects, such as in nutrition. Whether she is the starting goalkeeper or not during the 2023-2024 academic year, the point is that Barça has placed a strong bet on her. In February, when she had not yet returned from the serious knee injury, the Barcelona club announced her renewal until 2026, sealing a longer union than usual in women’s football, where contracts tend to last of one or two years. The contract of Sandra Paños, undisputed holder until now at Barça and who is 30 years old, ends on June 30, 2024.
If Cata wins the World Cup with Spain against England on Sunday, it will not be the first time that they are proclaimed world champions. In 2018, she was the starting goalkeeper for the Spanish under-17 team that won the tournament in Uruguay. Then the Mallorcan was awarded as the best in her position. Previously, that same year, he had played in the Under-20 World Cup in France and the current absolute World Cup had already taken place there. Misa started it as the starting goalkeeper and Cata, two years younger, ended up under the posts in the qualifiers.
#goalkeeper #place #Sandra #Paños #Spanish #national #team #Barça