Spain living up to billing in Poland

Ten years ago in Papua New Guinea, Spain reached the knock-out stage of a FIFA Women's U-20 World Cup™ for the first time in their history, and have been tournament ever-presents since. This in itself is a huge achievement, let alone qualifying for the knock-outs for the fifth time in a row thanks to a record 11-0 win over New Caledonia.

"I'm very happy because we stayed focused and didn't allow our levels to drop throughout the 90 minutes,” said Spain coach David Aznar to FIFA. “We wanted to be right at it for 90 minutes and, in the end, the girls worked extremely hard to make sure of that.”

"We want to keep progressing in this tournament, and keep winning,” added Aznar. “We'll go into the game against China [PR] with the aim of finishing the group with three wins. Now we have to recover well. The competition is getting tougher and tougher, there are very few rest days between matches, and we'll try to turn up in the best possible shape."

Over the last decade, Spain have been very successful in U-20 Women’s World Cups, reaching the final on two occasions: La Rojita were runners-up in 2018, before going all the way in 2022. But the Iberians have not only set the world alight in U-20 competitions; they also qualified for the knock-out stages of five editions of the FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup™ on the bounce, between 2014 and 2024, winning in 2018 and 2022 and reaching the 2024 decider. And then there's the senior team, of course, who won the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023™.

Given this impeccable record, there is great expectation of the current cohort in Poland – perhaps too great. But does that come with pressure to perform in the latter stages?

"I wouldn't say pressure, but rather a will to win," affirmed Alba Cerrato, who bagged a brace against the Caledonians. "We are ambitious, and we want to win the whole thing."

One of Spain's greatest strengths is its ability to instill the same footballing philosophy and style of play into all its age groups year after year, naturally keeping the wheel turning from one generation to the next. However, the most striking aspect of the current U-20 squad is that it is not only made up of players born in 2006; but stars from the generations of 2007, 2008 and 2009 have also been added for that perfect blend, with Julia Torres being a prime example.

"We're from different teams, but we've gelled really well together," said Pau Comendador. "We've known each other for many years, even though we didn't play together at the same World Cup [Women's U-17], and we've come here well-prepared."

Aznar has inherited this U-20 squad with a clear guiding vision: to produce fully developed players who are ready to make the step up to the senior team and help re-assert Spain's global dominance. But his main objective isn't to create a clear path to the senior team.

"That isn't a goal, we don't identify it as such," explained Aznar. "But we know we're working with players who, as I've said, could absolutely join the senior team in the short or medium term. For us, it's important for them to have this experience with the U-20 national team so that they can take this step and play in international tournaments with our senior national team, so that they're prepared and understand what a tournament of this magnitude means, so that they know the standards to set themselves, and so that they're capable, mentally, of playing to the best of their ability."

For now at least, the Spanish way seems to be working, and there's no doubt that the multi-European champions are being held in very high esteem in Poland, just as they are at every tournament. It's safe to say that they've lived up to the billing, thus far.