ADVERTISEMENT |  | | | Aug. 14, 2023, 11:30 a.m. Eastern time |
 | | Spain is leaning in to its emotions, whatever they are.Grant Down/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images |
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On the substitutes' bench, Jenni Hermoso was crying. She would not stop crying until she had reached the hotel, several hours later. Next to her, Alexia Putellas was crying, overwhelmed by what her teammates had just achieved. Jorge Vilda, Spain's coach, welled up while he was on the field, celebrating his team's victory against the Netherlands and its first trip to the semifinals of the Women's World Cup. |
This release of emotion, Vilda said, was all the work of one member of the large support staff that has accompanied Spain to New Zealand. That man, Javier López Vallejo, is not exactly a household name, though he had a long and reasonably distinguished career as a goalkeeper in Spain's top division. He made more than 100 appearances for his hometown club, Osasuna, and racked up another century at Villarreal before retiring in 2011. |
Now, though, he has a dual role with Spain's women's national team: He is the team's goalkeeping coach, and he is also its psychologist. It was López Vallejo, Vilda said, who taught him and his players that it was OK to cry. He has helped them, in Vilda's telling, to accept the pressure and the stress of representing their country, of taking part in a four-week tournament that may define their careers, of trying to institute a revolution in sports. He has encouraged them not to shy away from the emotions all of that generates. |
That victory against the Netherlands took Spain into uncharted territory. The country had never before made the semifinals. Before this tournament, it had never actually won a game of knockout soccer at the World Cup. Now, if Vilda's team can beat Sweden on Tuesday, it will take its place in its first World Cup final. |
Already, though, the team has had a seismic impact on the sporting landscape in Spain. The players may not be aware of that yet: As Vilda said, the combination of geography and time difference means they are not experiencing the response at home "in the first person." But they know, on some level, that they are blazing a trail, forging a path, treading new ground. |
Those emotions, then, the ones Hermoso and Putellas and all of the others experienced on the field after beating the Dutch, as they glimpsed just a portion of the scale of their achievement, are all legitimate. López Vallejo can attest to that. As Vilda looked over at his psychologist that day, he noticed something: López Vallejo was crying, too. |
 | Scott Barbour/Associated Press | | |
| TUESDAY 4:00 A.M. EASTERN TIME | EDEN PARK |  | Spain |
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