Spain reaping rewards for investing in women’s football and catching them young

About a decade ago, Spain didn’t really feature among the elite in women’s football. Fast forward to today, and though their senior national team hasn’t won a FIFA World Cup, they have won a world title in every age category.

As many as 91,648 turned up at the stadium for a UEFA Champions League semi-final last season. 91,553 were present for the quarterfinal.

The semi-final attendance set a record for a women’s football match. What’s heartening though was that it wasn’t a one-off. Neither was the attendance during the El Clasico quarterfinal.

It’s also a reflection of the nation’s focus on women’s football and the kind of seriousness with which they go about promoting it.On Wednesday, they opened their campaign beating a very athletic Colombia 1-0 in a Group C match at the DY Patil Stadium.It’s the reason why all of these U-17 players are part of teams in the Spanish league, with six of them playing for Real Madrid ‘B’, five for Barcelona ‘B’ and four for Athletic Bilbao.