Who: England vs SpainWhat: UEFA Women’s Euro 2025 finalWhere: St Jakob-Park in Basel, SwitzerlandWhen: Sunday, July 27, at 6pm (16:00 GMT)How to follow: We’ll have all the build-up on Al Jazeera Sport from 3pm (15:00 GMT) in advance of our live text commentary stream.
If the women’s football players of Spain have gone from nobodies to title contenders in less than a decade, it hasn’t come easy.
The national team has had to fight for better coaching, decent travel conditions, and modern training facilities.
It paid off with a World Cup title in 2023, the Nations League crown last year, and they face England on Sunday in the European Championship final.
“It has been a constant with the national team that we have had to fight for acceptable work conditions that would allow us to play at our best,” former Spain defender Marta Torrejon said on Friday.
Where did the rise of Spain’s women begin?
Torrejon lived through the lean years, the time when playing for her country felt like, in her words, a “waste of time”.
And she knows from talking with Barcelona teammates who still play for their country how much things have improved.
Torrejon retired from international football after the 2019 World Cup as Spain’s then most-capped player with 90 appearances. The 35-year-old has since helped Barcelona win three Champions League titles and a slew of other trophies.
She also played a part in one of the revolts Spain’s women have staged to demand more from the men who run the game.
After the 2015 World Cup, Torrejon and other players successfully pushed for the removal of coach Ignacio Quereda, who had run the team for nearly three decades, for his poor preparation before the team’s first …
