{"id":37461,"date":"2023-09-05T22:03:43","date_gmt":"2023-09-05T22:03:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/?p=37461"},"modified":"2023-09-05T22:03:45","modified_gmt":"2023-09-05T22:03:45","slug":"football-spains-jorge-vilda-sacked","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/2023\/09\/05\/football-spains-jorge-vilda-sacked\/","title":{"rendered":"Football: Spain\u2019s Jorge Vilda sacked"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The 42-year-old, who was sacked on Tuesday, had not won anything since 2011 and there was a feeling Spain\u2019s World Cup triumph came despite him, not because of him<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Winning the World Cup has put an international spotlight on the Spanish national women\u2019s team and, alongside Luis Rubiales, Jorge Vilda\u2019s true self has come to light. During Rubiales\u2019 now infamous assembly speech, the president of the Spanish football federation (RFEF) offered the Spain manager a new four-year contract on \u20ac500,000 a year, not more and no less to prove a point. While 11 members of the coaching staff of the national team released a joint statement in support of Jennifer Hermoso, Vilda was not part of it. He made his stance clear in support of the RFEF president and not the players who won him a World Cup.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, 16 days after the triumph in Sydney, Vilda is gone, sacked by the RFEF after the fallout from Rubiales kissing Hermoso on the lips at the prize ceremony. He will be missed by hardly anyone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2022, Spain crashed out the Euros at the quarter-final stage against the eventual champions, England, a third consecutive major tournament under Vilda where Spain had not been able to reach at least a semi-final. Despite this, Vilda never felt pressured by results like most other managers. One week before the Euros kicked off, he was offered and signed a new contract to stay on as manager of the national team until 2024. Whether Vilda was winning or losing, he always got a new contract from Rubiales.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Jorge<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The last major trophy that Vilda had secured was the European Under-17 Championship title in 2011, but winning the World Cup cemented the idea within the RFEF, and sparked the confidence for Rubiales to offer Vilda a new contract knowing he had the argument of \u201cwhy wouldn\u2019t you keep a World Cup winning manager?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe one reason would be that last year, after the 2022 Euros, 15 Spain Women players \u2013 with the support of Alexia Putellas, Irene Paredes and Hermoso \u2013 protested against the RFEF because of the poor professional standards held by it and said they would not play for Spain again unless changes were made. Though it was not a direct call for Vilda to be dismissed, the lack of an elite standard in the national team falls under the responsibility of the manager, his staff and the sporting director; which in this case is Vilda as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aside from being unable to keep up a high standard of football, Vilda has been notably poor at managing players. He refused to include Barcelona\u2019s first-choice goalkeeper, Sandra Pa\u00f1os, in the World Cup squad despite her winning the league and the Champions League. He instead called up Cata Coll, Pa\u00f1os\u2019s understudy, who came back from an anterior cruciate ligament injury in March 2023 and started only two league matches with Barcelona last season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Real Madrid\u2019s Misa Rodr\u00edguez headed into the World Cup as Spain\u2019s first-choice goalkeeper but at the beginning of the knockout stage, Coll was suddenly starting in goal. A goalkeeper switch in the middle of a major tournament is almost unheard of. Was it a clash of ideas with Vilda that cost Rodr\u00edguez her starting position? When the Spain captain, Ivana Andr\u00e9s, picked up an injury in the group stage, Rodr\u00edguez was one of the options to wear the armband. But as reported by Relevo<\/a>, she insisted there were better suited players such as Putellas and Paredes, who were Spain captains before the \u201c15\u201d statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Alexia<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Alexia Putellas, the two-time Ballon d\u2019Or winner, had captained Spain before she backed the protest made by 15 of her teammates. Photograph: Daniela Porcelli\/SPP\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Spain could have had another world-class player in Australia and New Zealand but Damaris Egurrola, the Lyon midfielder, decided to switch national teams, with Vilda it seems being at the centre of her reasons. She had the option to represent Spain, the Netherlands or the USA and in March 2022 opted for the Oranje<\/em> Leeuwinnen.<\/em> Egurrola made only one appearance in more than two years for Spain after making her debut in 2019. She\u2019s now a regular starter for Lyon, eight times the European champions, and has represented the Netherlands at a Euros and a World Cup.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy relationship with Vilda? There wasn\u2019t one,\u201d she said in an interview with the Basque TV channel EITB. Vilda and Egurrola worked with each other in the Spain youth teams, they knew each other well, and she knew him well enough to leave. \u201cI\u2019m proud of the decision I took to play for another national team and be happy,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What the 15 players referred to \u2013 the level of training, professionalism and standard of the national team \u2013 were Vilda\u2019s responsibilities as both the manager and sporting director. Players would go to the national team and play every minute of games, even in friendlies, when the manager could have rested players \u2013 particularly those from Barcelona who were often involved in the league, the Champions League and the Copa de la Reina. There was a sense from the players that there was a lack of protection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the statement released by the players they clarified: \u201cWe do not wish to be called up to the national team until situations are fixed where our emotional state, personal state and performance are affected, and, in consequence, because of the national team, we finish with undesirable injuries.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is no coincidence that the national team\u2019s success has come parallel with that of Barcelona. The Catalan club reached their first Women\u2019s Champions League final in 2019 and since then they have reached three more finals and won two. In Spain\u2019s World Cup final starting XI, there were six current Barcelona players and one former Bar\u00e7a player. With Putellas coming on late in the match, eight of the 14 Spanish players who featured in the World Cup final were Barcelona players. And that is without players such as Mapi Le\u00f3n, Pa\u00f1os and Patri Guijarro, who stayed at home as a consequence of their protest. The three of them started every single match in Spain\u2019s Euro 2022 campaign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s one thing if we\u2019ve only been demanding this [higher standards for the national team] for a week, but when it\u2019s been years \u2026 I don\u2019t want to compare but I\u2019m at Barcelona and I\u2019m very happy with the level there,\u201d Le\u00f3n said in an interview with Mundo Deportivo in March.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Graffiti<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read more<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Barcelona\u2019s European and domestic success has also sparked Real Madrid into action and they have invested heavily in their women\u2019s team, especially after a gruesome 5-2 defeat<\/a> in the Champions League against their bitter rivals at the Camp Nou in 2022. There were two Real players in the World Cup final starting XI, with two more coming on in the second half. In total, of the 14 Spain players who part took in the World Cup final, only one player was neither a Barcelona nor Madrid player past or present: Alba Redondo of Levante.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Spain are the holders of the senior, under-20 and under-17 World Cups, talent is thriving despite the lack of resources given to them by their federation and despite Vilda. As the former Spain captain Ver\u00f3 Boquete told the Guardian<\/a> recently: \u201cAll those talents that are being formed at clubs in Spain are at an elite level, independently of who is the manager of the national team.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It all adds to the feeling that Spain won the World Cup despite Jorge Vilda and not because of him, and that is a damning verdict on the man who has been in charge since 2015.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The future is clearly bright for Spanish women\u2019s football and at last the players may actually get the support they deserve.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The 42-year-old, who was sacked on Tuesday, had not won anything since 2011 and there was a feeling Spain\u2019s World Cup triumph came despite him, not because of him Winning the World Cup has put an international spotlight on the Spanish national women\u2019s team and, alongside Luis Rubiales, Jorge Vilda\u2019s true self has come to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":37462,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_post_source_name":"","_post_source_url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3295],"tags":[3347,10808,641,10387,7960,10850,1911,9109,1258,2419,9505,5247,3577,7090,803,11525,11294,10954,11493,10519,10560,1719,10608,7699,12791,8126,12187,286,12792,5187,11973,13256,10917,3805,5561,9628,196,2196,13301,10479,7217,4293,10480,10807,9874,10041,9030,3346,5320,36,5248,594,7898,5784],"class_list":["post-37461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-sport","tag-australia","tag-ballon-dor","tag-barcelona","tag-campaign","tag-case","tag-catalan","tag-champions-league","tag-crashed","tag-england","tag-euro","tag-european","tag-football","tag-future","tag-games","tag-goalkeeper","tag-injuries","tag-injury","tag-international","tag-interview","tag-jorge-vilda","tag-la","tag-levante","tag-luis-rubiales","tag-lyon","tag-manager","tag-match","tag-n","tag-netherlands","tag-new-contract","tag-new-zealand","tag-one","tag-players","tag-poor","tag-president","tag-protest","tag-putellas","tag-real-madrid","tag-reina","tag-results","tag-rubiales","tag-sacked","tag-spain","tag-spanish","tag-spanish-football","tag-spanish-women","tag-speech","tag-success","tag-sydney","tag-women","tag-world","tag-world-cup","tag-who","tag-xi","tag-youth"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37461"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37461\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37463,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37461\/revisions\/37463"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}