68 days since the last time he smiled on a football field. Jenni Hermoso He screamed, clenched his fists and cried in Salerno, but for the first time in two months and seven days he was happy. She did it when she saw that the rejection of the Italian goalkeeper she had caught hit the back of the net, when all her teammates hugged each other, acting out the pineapple they have been all this time, when Irene Paredes, injured, whispered in her ear something similar to that the dreamed return had come true.
“Life, sometimes, gives you small gifts. At that moment I thought about many people who have been behind me all this time and that, thanks to them, I have returned to playing. What better than feeling good again, that give the winning goal. Now I can only smile“. Jenni had angrily exorcised a good part of the demons that persecuted her. She freed herself in the Salernitana stadium and also freed Spain in a tedious duel before a Italia that had turned the world champion’s game gray.
Jenni appeared almost at the end, when Montse Tomé He was still trying to push a team that did not feel comfortable except in the first 20 minutes. Nothing to do with the Spain that defeated Sweden with a brilliant game in Göteborg that overwhelmed Swiss. Anger is a powerful feeling with an accelerating effect and in those games, Spain was angry. Against Italy, normality thickened their game.
Italy had a plan and made the Spanish women fall into their trap. They were able to escape with a shot Mariona left-handed shot the father and a finish of Esther that touched the stick. They began to make their rival suffer with a aggressive pressure that did not leave them contact with the ball. That is a hallmark of this Spain of Tomé, but it began to be diluted when the central It was, in an acrobatics, hooked a pocketed corner kick that forced Cata Coll to take a brilliant hand. They protected themselves but had resources to harm.
Spain was trying to impose its quality in the game. Aitana, with the Ballon d’Or almost under her arm, tried to catalyze the attacks, dribbling even from behind, and looking for Lucía and Esther. But something was wrong. They were starting to think slowly as Italy adjusted. Alexia did not appear to accelerate and neither does Mariona.