Natalia Arroyo signs as Aston Villa coach after her good time at Real Sociedad

Natalia Arroyo, who left the Real Sociedad bench last summer after leading the team in May txuri urdin to the final of the Queen’s Cup, has signed for Aston Villa, the eighth placed team in the English Women’s Super League. The technician had had several offers in recent months but had discarded them in search of a project that would truly fulfill her. He has finally chosen the Birmingham club, whose football management is led by Monchi. At 38 years old, it will be the first time that the Catalan woman works outside of Spain. He is going to the most powerful league in Europe by budget to try to change the face of a team that this season has only won two of the 11 games it has played so far in the tournament. Their first two games are a pain in the ass: they will debut at home this coming Saturday against Manchester City – 4th classified and in the Champions League quarterfinals – and then they will host Chelsea on February 2, the undisputed leader of the competition with 31 points out of 33 possible.

Arroyo trained as a footballer in the youth ranks of Barcelona – he suffered several injuries and hung up his boots at the age of 22 after playing in the First Division for Espanyol – and is also a journalist – he graduated in Audiovisual Communication -. Since the beginning of September he wrote a weekly column in Morning Express, a collaboration that ends tomorrow with the publication of what will be his last article – at least for the moment – in this section.

The Catalan coach — she was born in the Barcelona municipality of Esplugas de Llobregat — left Real last June by her own decision after landing in Donostia in the summer of 2020. Until that year she had worked at the newspaper Ara and collaborated in broadcasts on Cadena SER and Gol Televisión, media in which he served as an analyst. She had also been in the Royal Catalan Football Federation, where she became the senior women’s team coach in 2014. Real Sociedad gave her the opportunity to debut for the first time on a professional bench after building a reputation as a commentator and after her passing through the autonomous federation.

Arroyo achieved three milestones with the club txuri urdin. The first of them in the 2021-2022 season, when the team qualified for the Champions League after a historic second place in the League in its only adventure in Europe. That runner-up gave them the opportunity to compete in the Super Cup the following season, in which they eliminated Sporting de Huelva in the semifinals and fell to the almighty Barcelona in the fight for the title. A year later was when she managed to get the San Sebastian team into the final of the Queen’s Cup, where Barça, the team that dominates football played by women in Spain with an iron fist, once again frustrated the dream of La Real will lift the second title in its history after the Cup won in 2019. It also did so with a scandalous win (8-0) that reflected the difference in level that exists between the first club in the country that He opted to professionalize the women’s team and the rest of the teams.

Arroyo’s good performance in his four seasons at Real sparked the interest of Barcelona itself. The Barça club sounded out the coach after the Galician Jonatan Giráldez announced at the end of 2023 that he would leave the technical direction of the team at the end of the year. “Barça called me, but the priority was continuity, and I could be a twist in the script,” Arroyo told the Cadena SER microphones last February. Finally, the entity opted for Pere Romeu, who had been part of staff of Giraldez.

The arrival of the Catalan coach to the Birmingham team represents another step in the spanishization of the club whose football management Monchi assumed in the summer of 2023, when he terminated his contract with Sevilla after Aston Villa paid three million euros for his signing. “We are delighted to be able to welcome Natalia to our football club. He impressed us with his passion for football and his way of training. We believe that he has all the necessary tools to succeed at Aston Villa,” Monchi himself said, according to a statement from the entity. The men’s team, in which center back Pau Torres plays, has been led since October 2022 by Guipuzcoan Unai Emery.