We all hurt ourselves” | Relay
“We said, ‘We’re going to talk to the RFEF president and explain the situation to him.’ Rubiales gets angry and upset.” Alexia Putellas tells in the Netflix documentary #SeAcabó: The Diary of the Champions, produced by You First Originals, how the Las 15 conflict began. A severe crisis that split the team in two and ushered in a period of tension in Spanish women’s football.
“His reaction – Rubiales’ reaction – was that we attacked him… I had just had an operation when they sent me the news: the captains of Barça, not the national team, are asking for Jorge’s head,” he notes. The two-time Ballon d’Or winner took an active part in the negotiations. , silently, and unblocked the situation after. secret visit to Madrid to meet Luis Rubiales, former president of the RFEF, a few months before the World Cup, which Spain would eventually win.
“As the final bell approached for the World Cup, there came a point when I said: We are all hurting ourselves. And in theory we should all want the same thing. And then one Sunday I go to Madrid and ask: what will the meeting be with Luis Rubiales. They were waiting for him to come and say: “Jorge can’t be a coach.”. And it seems like no, I already told you that this is not the problem. The problem was mentality. We started working there and, I don’t know if it was the third point, the problem was to convince the rest of the players to prove themselves,” says Alexia Putellas about the appointment, which took place in January 2023.
Improvements and notes are on the table to ensure that the national team once and for all becomes professional in its handling and daily life. Travel and transfers, hiring a nutritionist, additional physical therapists, educational materials, family reconciliation, strengthening technical leadership, strategic plan for the coming years or more communications staff. Rubiales and the RFEF agreed to push through these necessary and basic changes so that the national team could go to the World Cup with “all guarantees.”. And a step towards “reconciliation” of this team was taken by players such as Alexia Putellas, Mariona Caldentey, Ona Battle and Aitana Bonmati, in addition to Irene Paredes and Jenny Hermoso, who were not included in the list but showed support for their teammates.
“It is true that all the changes we asked for should not have happened, but the predisposition is different. I told myself the following: Aitana, you tried and maybe from within you can achieve more. I decide to come back,” admits Aitana Bonmati, one of the “15”, MVP of that World Cup and the best player in the world at the moment for the second year in a row. Although not all players made the same decision as the current ball. Or the winner “They had the advantage that the World Cup was ahead of them… Of the 15, we had 7 left,” says Lola Gallardo.
The conflict was suspended during the World Cup, but resumed again in the midst of the Rubiales affair and #SeAcabó, which managed to unite everyone to end all abuses of power and discrimination in women’s football. Gone are those difficult moments when the Las 15 list came out. It was 2022 and Spain had just suffered another heavy defeat in the quarter-finals of the European Cup. The dressing room, tired of the lack of change and realizing that they had the necessary talent to become champions (and a year later they became champions at the World Cup), decided to retreat.
Rubiales and his war against players: “He was after us”
“First we talk to the coach (Jorge Vilda),” says next to her Irene Paredes, who insists that they did not ask for the coach to be fired and, after seeing how her messages with Rubiales were leaked, said: “Only he and I had this conversation… This was for us.”
Literally. This was the beginning of a war in which the RFEF used all its weapons to “divide” the players and start a crisis that marked the history of Spanish football. The beginning of a struggle that continued with #SeAcabó and changed the structure of the federal entity. In those days, few people understood this. Few people supported his call for help and improvement of the situation in the national team.
The result was a group that “split in two”, messages of “hate” through the press and difficult meetings during the first rally. “It was disrespectful to your colleagues. These were meetings to divide us even more”Paredes spoke about the players who did not support the claims against Jorge Vilda and took a step back.
Ivana: “I had something inside me…”
One of them, Ivana Andres, the captain who won the world championship title in the final of the World Cup in Sydney, also tells how she felt: “Something inside me said: Ivana, you need to talk. But there were very radical positions: I can’t stand this anymore, and I said… It’s a very high price and I don’t want to miss the World Cup. The meeting ended and I didn’t say anything.”
This line is followed by her former Real Madrid teammates Teresa Abelleira and Olga Carmona. “I admit my mistake: I should have said this earlier, because in this way they knew that there were no players like them,” says the Galician. Meanwhile, the Sevillean avoids expressing her opinion on what happened: “I believe that I found myself in a completely different situation than my colleagues. because I had practically nothing in the national team, and I don’t want to openly express my opinion in the documentary.”
They were all part of the crisis that drowned Spanish women’s football for months. and this Sunday, with the visit of Alexia Putellas to Madrid, was a turning point for a concrete decision. This was not his only meeting. The captain’s gesture was repeated by Mollet in the middle of the Oliva summit. Together with Irene Paredes, the Catalan negotiated until the early hours of the morning to find a solution on behalf of his colleagues.
Their commitment and struggle were the key to bring about real change in Spanish football. And for this reason they have earned everyone’s respect, as evidenced by the statement of Betis player Rosa Márquez on Quiero ser Como.
“For me, this is no longer at the captain level, but also because… it is on a human level, like people. I think they were faced with problems that perhaps other, more selfish people, or rather a different problem, well, maybe they wouldn’t struggle so much for the simple reason that these aren’t even the same things that concern them personally. Irene Paredes has her own life, Alexia has won absolutely everything, and they continue to fight for me, who is 22 years old.“. Captains.