Longtime Spanish women’s national football manager Ignacio Quereda has left his post via resignation, after twenty-seven years in charge of Las Rojas. His resignation comes after multiple rumours that his squad was unhappy with his leadership at the country’s FIFA Women’s World Cup debut this summer in Canada.
Spain, appearing in the FIFA Women’s World Cup for the first time in its history, put in a credible performance at Canada 2015, gaining a point and never losing by more than a goal in a tricky Group E which featured Brazil, Costa Rica, and South Korea. This was in stark contrast to other tournament newcomers Cote d’Ivoire and Ecuador, who were lambasted by a combined -29 goal difference in just six games.
Immediately after Spain lost 2-1 in its final group stage match in Ottawa against South Korea, Quereda was asked by a Spanish journalist whether or not he felt secure in his job.
“Myself, I’m more motivated with bigger visions than ever,” retorted the Badajoz native after a particularly barbing question, “we have another challenge now, qualifying for the Euro, we’re not going to put our guard down, we’re going to work harder than ever to achieve higher goals.”
His post-match statement was in stark contrast to that of his players some weeks after the tournament, when they angrily cited a lack of friendlies in the run-up to Canada 2015, along with their coach’s lack of tactical preparation, as reasons for their first round exit.
However Quereda’s resignation, likely forced, was not a case of the longtime coach being underprepared. Rather, he fell victim to the Spanish superiority vacuum which sadly exists across all levels of football. With the sweeping success of the men’s national team across all levels, expectations for Spain’s women’s side were unreasonably high entering Canada 2015.
Sure, one could point out the fact that it took Quereda 27 years to qualify his Spain squad for a World Cup, or the fact that Spain only reached the European Championships twice during his tenure, but those are thin arguments. The fact Quereda stayed in his post for 27 years, with such a lack of results, is more a reflection of the sexism which dominates Spanish sport and society as a whole. The RFEF, like most of the Spanish sporting community, didn’t give a rat’s behind about the results of the women’s national team because women’s football was treated as a joke by nearly every club, governing body, and fan in Spain for a long time.
Thus, the fact Quereda managed to guide his charges to Canada 2015 at all, after 27 years of something less than mediocrity, is impressive in itself. During the run up to the tournament in April and May of this year, while most of their opponents were tuning up in friendlies, the Spanish squad was sitting on its hands. Again, Quereda seems to bear the brunt of the blame for this, but the responsibility to finance and schedule international friendlies again falls on, you guessed it, the RFEF.
Could you imagine a world in which the Spanish men’s national team didn’t play a single match for two months in the run-up to a World Cup? Of course not, because they are men, in Spain.
And so, La Roja showed up in Canada, amidst a surprising amount of coverage in the sports dailies back home. Expectations were high, despite the facts that; the team was playing in its first World Cup, with a relatively inexperienced squad, in a tricky group, and without having played any recent friendlies. In spite of these factors, casual fans at home expected the team to compete, if for no other reason than they bore the RFEF crest and represented a country with a proud men’s football tradition.
At the end of the day, Spain’s near-comical inability to put the ball into the back of the opposition net after chance upon chance sunk themselves. They were good enough to beat Costa Rica, and South Korea for that matter, to advance comfortably to the second round.
But they didn’t. La Roja created chances and dominated opponents for long stretches of time, but when the final whistle blew in Ottawa against South Korea, the team had its own lack of finishing to blame.
Spain’s first-round exit was seen as a ‘disappointment’ in the eyes of many. Players released a statement literally listing excuses, before calling for an end to Quereda’s time in charge of the national women’s program. They cited non-existent friendlies, poor acclimatization, insufficient opposition analysis, and a lack of match preparation as reasons for the team’s ‘disappointing’ first-round exit.
As somebody who was around the tournament, I believe that the Spanish team did not have the same staff in place as other European nations. Squads like Norway, Germany, and England were all surrounded by specialists and tacticians amongst a myriad of other staff. There was a sense of professionalism around those squads – perhaps it was funding, or perhaps it was the fact most of their players were professionals at the club level – which was not present with the Spanish team.
Like many, I believe that the FIFA Women’s World Cup is an exercise in measuring equality in societies. Northern European countries like Germany, Norway, and Sweden thrive in women’s football because they have funding, strong female coaches, and gender equality is a non-issue, while traditional Mediterranean powerhouses in the men’s game, such as Italy and Spain, struggle for the opposite reasons; a lack of funding, female coaches, and pervasive 21st-century gender equality issues.
Forgive me, I’m getting off-topic.
Nacho Quereda resigned from his post amidst a mutiny from his players, but the mutineers waved their proverbial swords in the wrong direction. Firstly, the team had its own finishing to blame for not advancing; Quereda’s tactics gave them ample opportunity to polish off Costa Rica, which would have been enough to see them into the knockout phase. Secondly, the blame for the team’s lack of preparation in the run-up to Canada 2015 falls on the shoulders of the RFEF, not Quereda. Lastly, until gender equality in Spain reaches the level achieved in, say, Nordic countries, the team cannot be expected to compete on the same level as their European counterparts at FIFA Women’s World Cup events.
34 year-old Jorge Vilda will now assume Quereda’s post, after enjoying plenty of success at youth levels with Spain’s Under-17 and -19s. However, the former Real Madrid youth player is walking into a lion’s den, with female players demanding a more professional women’s program in a society that still has a very real gender equality issue.
