Are Spain pacing themselves or sleepwalking to a deafening alarm call?

The Guardian

18-07-2025

Afterwards, there was an awful lot of messing about. Probably more than you would expect after a briefly absorbing quarter-final whose outcome was never seriously in doubt. The Swiss players performed the world's slowest lap of honour. The Spanish players posed for a group photo, but it kept having to be retaken as more players arrived. OK, now one more with Aitana. Now one more with Irene. Now one with the staff. Now in portrait for the 'gram. Then the teams gave each other an honour guard off the pitch. At one point you would swear someone laid out some picnic blankets and scotch eggs.
Finally they left. And if there was a strangely ceremonial feel to the post-match perhaps it was because there was a strangely ceremonial feel to the match itself: more event than genuine contest, even as Switzerland held out for more than an hour, counted their blessings, fleetingly hoped. But there was always too much time on the clock. There were always Athenea del Castillo and Salma Paralluelo and Vicky López to come on. There was always one more attack to weather, one more shot to block, one more ricochet that had to bounce just right.
Did the end vindicate Spain's leisurely means? Certainly they appeared a good deal more relaxed than you might have imagined for a team who hadn't qualified for the last four of this competition since 1997. And you can judge for yourself whether this is a source of reassurance or concern: a team imperiously pacing themselves, or one sleepwalking towards a deafening alarm call? For now, their supremacy has not been seriously challenged. France or Germany may have bolder ideas.
You could even glimpse this languor in the buildup, a stark contrast with the fever and fervour of the host country.
'It is the biggest game ever, it's once in a lifetime,' said Switzerland coach Pia Sundhage.
'We'll have to be very alert,' said Spain's Irene Paredes.
'It's indescribable, it's incredible,' said Switzerland's Noelle Maritz.
'We know this is an important game,' said Spain coach Montse Tomé.
The Wankdorf is exactly how you would imagine a Swiss football stadium to be: a perfectly rectangular metal box plonked out by the motorway and fitted with comfortable ergonomic seating. But it was ideal for its one real job: noise retention, and for 65 increasingly intriguing minutes Spain too were being boxed in, thwarted, contained, by a home side gradually daring to believe.
Mariona Caldentey's early missed penalty set the tone, and though Switzerland were barely able to exit their own territory the game progressed with few other scares. Spain were simply not quick enough, not urgent enough, perhaps even a little dead behind the eyes. Too many aimless diagonals, too many speculative shots from the 20-yard range, and as half-time came and went a kind of simmering frustration, too. Caldentey ended the game without having created a single chance, Aitana Bonmatí just one.
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But hey, it was a good one. Bonmatí's sublime backheel for Del Castillo's goal was the touch of genius of which she is always capable, the reason you can never sleep on her, the reason you can never sleep on Spain. On the touchline Sundhage stood a little sadly in her trackie top and shorts, looking as ever like a pensioner on the regional news protesting about the closure of her local leisure centre.
Tomé, by contrast, was wearing the sort of immaculately tailored suit you see on someone who is about to sell you a very expensive perfume. And the arrival of the bench backup was the cue for Spain to turn on the class. Soon it was two through Clàudia Pina, and although Alexia Putellas's late penalty miss kept the score down, it had long been evident that there would be no second Miracle of Berne.
And so ends Swiss Girl Summer 2025: a fiesta of packed stadiums and viral dances, last-minute goals and vivid dreams. Swiss television viewing figures on SRF have been staggering, the sort of normally associated with Roger Federer in a Wimbledon final. There are new teenage stars to fete in Sydney Schertenleib and Noemi Ivelj and Iman Beney. And the progress of a proudly multicultural squad – half of whom have roots abroad – has captivated a nation bearing the same fraught relationship with immigration that you seem to find everywhere these days.
So you can understand why they wanted to enjoy their moment. They lingered, they unfurled a thank-you banner to the fans, they beamed and waved, soaking up the last of this joy, the last of this shared energy. And in many ways this was the easy part: the hard bit comes now, the tough and thorny and thankless work of actually building a sport in the foothills. The window of opportunity has closed for now. But with a little care and a little love, the light can still get in.