2023-08-20 19:05:15
Women’s World Cup
Special delivery
Sidney
Updated Sunday, August 20, 2023 – 19:05
In the guts of the stadium built on an old indigenous slaughterhouse, the Spanish soccer players began a party that does not end. Tonight they arrive in Madrid
Queen Letizia during the celebrations of the Spanish women’s teamJos JimnezEFE
Spain won the World Cup with a left-footed shot on indigenous land. Sydney’s Stadium Australia occupies land in the Olympic Park that was home to the Wangal people for thousands of years. Until the first British colonists and the successive smallpox epidemics decimated the aborigines, who had to join other clans to survive.
On Sunday, those who conquered the land of the Wannal were 23 Spanish warriors. In the toughest season, with mutinies inside a ship that threatened to sink, they have achieved the star.
After the final whistle, Quevedo’s “Stay” was interrupted by a loudspeaker at full volume. What the Spanish team has achieved will remain engraved forever in the history of women’s football. Although, as an Australian commentator said, after the groundbreaking World Cup in Australia and New Zealand, it should start to be called just football.
Before starting the game, Aitana’s “babies” played in the stadium when Mia, an Australian wearing a Spanish scarf and an England cap, broke out to dance. Right away, three of her friends saw themselves on top of her and accompanied her. They were already in tune because minutes before they had all warmed up with “La Macarena”. It was all one big party.
Meanwhile, on the five giant screens of the stadium, they broadcast the arrival of the bus from the Spanish team. The players seem to have already blended in with the atmosphere on the field: in the images they appeared pounding on the windows, shouting and clapping, like schoolchildren on a school excursion. So they went out after plugged into the field. “They had fire in their eyes,” coach Jorge Vilda commented afterwards.
There was a very good entrance in the stadium. About 78,500 people, the organization said. The largest and most noisy group of Spaniards sat behind the national bench. Most were relatives of the 23 national team players.
The rest, especially the expatriates who live in Australia, were more spread out in the rest of the stands. As two families with small children who have been working in the city of Adelaide for five years. Or Carlos and Jorge, two engineers from Madrid who live in the capital, Canberra. Elsa Pataky was also there, with her face painted in the colors of Spain, and her husband Chris Hemsworth.
In the authorities’ box, the most outstanding Spanish representation was that of Queen Letizia, who wore a red jacket, and who was accompanied by her young daughter, Princess Sofia. Some of the English tabloids put the photo of the Spanish queen among the highlights of their websites during the game, reiterating how upset the British were at the absence of King Charles III or Prince William.
“What a bounce the queen, what a bounce the queen!” Shouted the players when she went down to the grass to deliver the cup to captain Ivana Andrs. That was one of the videos of the final. Just like the collective trophy in hand or the circles in the center of the field.
“We have believed and we have achieved it by fighting like pigs. This is for all those girls who are now going to start playing soccer,” the captain blurted out excitedly in the mixed zone while on television at the stadium, curiously, the production showed images of girls on the grass – relatives of the soccer players – kicking the ball with the stands already empty.
“What we have done is very great. Who would have told me when I was in the lower categories of Barcelona and women’s football was not even professional. I want to thank all the people who paved the way for us and who have not had the same opportunities than us”, remarked Aitana Bonmat, Ballon d’Or winner of the World Cup.
The Sydney stadium has already paid for its lights. At the beginning of the 20th century, here was a huge state herding farm with the capacity to slaughter 25,000 animals a week.
The revolutionary 2000 Olympic Games were a facelift for this land to the west of the city that was originally the cradle of Pacific Indians. Then it became a sporting sanctuary, building a first class super stadium in the center where Spain has been proclaimed world champion.
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