Spain says goodbye to the year with a good victory against France at home

Spain said goodbye to the year tonight with a good victory. The national team, after a few turbulent months due to not meeting expectations in the Olympic Games and due to the revolution that Montse Tomé is carrying out in the group, knocked down France at the Allianz Riviera stadium in Nice with goals from Aitana Bonmatí and Claudia Pina in the first part and Lucía García and Mariona Caldentey in the second. Against a powerful team—tenths in the rankingFIFA—and with a powerful physique that oppressed the Spanish ball’s release, La Roja was not the dominating team that boxed its rival in the area almost the entire game, but it was able to maintain the physical rhythm of the French, to throw fast transitions and continually finding the door through which to escape the forward pressure.

Like four days ago against South Korea in Cartagena, Tomé’s plan worked out from the beginning. The coach once again opted for Claudia Pina on the left wing, who returned to the national team this call after more than two years away, since she resigned with 14 other teammates in protest of the conditions they suffered under Jorge Vilda, the previous coach. In the sixth minute, Mariona saw that she was left with a gap in front of the Barcelona forward, crossed the field, made a breakaway and received the ball from her. The Arsenal attacker, a footballer with a phenomenal vision of the game, drove with her right leg almost to the baseline and then took a cross with her left so that Aitana Bonmatí could put it into the net after arriving from the second line.

The team, once again with the midfield formed by Tere Abelleira, Patri Guijarro and Bonmatí, withstood the downpour of suffocating French pressure in the first section, but an error in the start of the Galician midfielder left Clara Mateo facing Adriana Nanclares in a hand in hand that he did not know how to define. The blunder did not change Spain’s plan, which continued trying to mix and mix to untangle the French skein. After Pina received a foul on the midfield line, the team made 16 passes through all corners of the pitch until they found Barcelona’s forward again on the front line. Pina controlled and nailed a cross goal into the net.

France found itself on the brink of half-time with the goal due to an error by María Méndez. The Madrid centre-back put her right leg in front of a Becho cross and the ball shot towards the Nanclares goal after hitting her shin. The goal emboldened the French team for a few minutes, which came twice closer to the Athletic goalkeeper, who started last night again ahead of Cata Coll.

Upon leaving the locker room, Spain calmed down again, always guided by its midfield. The team captured the third after another combination of 17 passes masterfully directed by Abelleira and launched by Mariona, who put a sensational ball between center and wing for Ona Batlle to assist Lucía García.

Mariona herself closed the match by converting a penalty committed by Dali after Diani had reduced the distance earlier in a play that had to be reviewed by the VAR, available in the match by decision of the French federation, contrary to what the Spanish does. in the La Roja friendlies held on the Peninsula. With the victory, the team closed with good feelings a turbulent end to the year in which Tomé made very important changes in the group by leaving out two of the captains, Irene Paredes and Jenni Hermoso, and the starting goalkeeper of Real Madrid, Misa Rodriguez.