Spain's women's soccer team coach Jorge Vilda celebrates with the trophy after winning the Women's World Cup on August 20, 2023.AMANDA PEROBELLI/Reuters
When Spain senior women’s coach Jorge Vilda’s name was announced at the team’s pre-World Cup roster unveiling, half the players refused to applaud.
After Spain beat Netherlands in the quarters, Vilda ran out on the field, looking for someone, anyone, to embrace. Nobody bit. Vilda ran around by himself for a while, shaking his fists and looking ridiculous.
After beating England to win their first World Cup on Sunday, Vilda still hadn’t learned. He joined a throng of Spanish players bopping up and down on the field. Despite wedging himself into the middle of the scrum, no one would hug Vilda or high-five him or even look at him. After a few seconds of sad pogoing, Vilda stopped and walked off by himself.
Why does the team hate Vilda so much? There are a few reasons. His dad is the president of the women’s football federation. Vilda was appointed coach when he was just 34 years old. Despite Spain’s long, miserable run in international soccer, he’s hung on to his job for more than eight years.
He is apparently a control freak. One Spanish paper reported that he insists on turning off the lights in players’ hotel rooms so that he can make sure they are in their beds. It reminds you a little of the former Toronto FC manager who alienated his entire squad by refusing to let them wear flip flops.
Vilda burned his bridges so comprehensively that a dozen players quit the national team for as long as he remains. Once that happened, a schism opened – leavers on one side, remainers on the other. Most of them play together professionally at Barcelona and Real Madrid.
While Spain’s remainers have been marching toward the sport’s top prize, the leavers have been on holiday, Instagramming away the pain. As the final began, no public comment had passed between the two camps. Reportedly, no comment had passed at all. Little wonder that no one wants to be photographed palling around with the guy who’s the source of the contagion.
And yet.
Vilda and Spain just proved a rule of sports – great teammates don’t need to like each other. Some great teams are better when members hate each other’s guts.
Until kickoff on Sunday, you’d have said England were the most complete women’s team in the world. Once the match ended, it was time for them to start thinking about a roster renovation. Not a teardown, but a refresh. Because on the evidence of this match, they are now second best by some distance.
Led by the tournament’s best player, Aitana Bonmati, the Spanish midfield pulled England apart like freshly baked bread. It was a 90-minute geometry lesson – Spain moving unhindered up the field in triangles; England trying (and failing) to make things happen in straight lines. The score was close – 1-0 – but the traffic went in one direction.
The knock on women’s soccer is the same one put on North American players generally – that they lack fine skills. Precision passing. Ball control in tight spaces. The ability to see beyond the first outlet pass.
Spain didn’t invent those things, but they have perfected them. The closest thing the Spanish team has to a doppelganger isn’t another women’s team, but their own men’s team. Both operate with the same precision. Every player has a plan as soon as she receives the ball, even when surrounded. Especially when surrounded.
Canada’s mission statement for the World Cup in four years’ time should be clear – be more like Spain. It’s one thing to say it and another to find people who can do it. This country doesn’t have that personnel at the moment.
A good start would be getting a few Canadian players into Spain’s Liga F. If you want to be the best, you have to play with the best. Or at least watch them up close.
Another path Spain is blazing leads away from the team-is-everything hive mind that has taken over sports. You know all the mantras – I couldn’t do it without every single guy in that locker room; we win together and we lose together; we’re all like brothers in there.
I’ve yet to cover a team where that’s actually the case, but there’s a lot of pressure to act as if it is.
Everyone would prefer to work somewhere that’s fun all the time. But just because you like your colleagues doesn’t mean you’re all amazing at your jobs. Sometimes a little friction is the spark that leads to optimal performance. Who among us hasn’t done something we didn’t think we could because some jerk told us we couldn’t?
That’s what Spain just managed. The easy thing would have been to show up, go half-speed and head home after a couple of weeks. It would have spared the feelings of the leavers, making the coming Spanish professional season easier on everyone. It certainly looked like Spain was headed that way after getting shellacked 4-0 by Japan in the group stage.
But that defeat concentrated minds. The remainers chose to win despite the charged atmosphere, rather than give up because of it. Since then, Spain have taken their game – and the game writ large – up a level. This was the last World Cup where very fit teams with a half-dozen really special inspirational speeches could show up thinking they had a chance to win. From now on, you either bring two dozen world-class players or you needn’t be troubled booking hotels for the full month.
In four years time, everyone will be better. Countries such as England, France, Netherlands and Japan will be where Spain are now, and who knows where Spain might be. That so many veterans stayed home meant this winning team was unusually young. If they can avoid killing each other, Spain will be an absolute monster by 2027.
I suppose it’s even possible that Jorge Vilda will still be coach. He’s a proven winner with no sense of shame. Why quit now?
As they handed out the winners’ medals on Sunday, Vilda took his moment to shine. The entire stadium booed him ruthlessly. Vilda acted as if he didn’t notice. In this one instance, you’d have to give him the same compliment you’d pay his players – unusual poise and an extremely consistent performance.