Washington will host a meeting of the world’s leading women’s teams on Saturday as Spain, ranked first by FIFA, face second-placed United States at Audi Field, with both sides treating the occasion as part of their road to next summer’s World Cup in Brazil.
Spain coach Sonia Bermúdez said there is little room for a relaxed approach when two teams with global ambitions meet, insisting that neither camp sees these fixtures as ordinary friendlies. The sides will meet again three days later at Subaru Park in Chester, Pennsylvania, giving Spain their highest-level examination before the World Cup, for which they secured qualification four months ago.
A World Cup rehearsal on American soil
Speaking in Washington at an Atlantic Council discussion on women’s football’s growing international reach, Bermúdez said both teams carry the same competitive instinct.
“For us, there are no friendly matches,” she said. “Both teams want to compete at 100 per cent every time.”
Emma Hayes’s United States arrive as one of the principal contenders for the tournament in Brazil, alongside a Spanish side that has risen to the top of the FIFA ranking. The near sell-out crowds expected for both matches will add to the sense that these are more than routine dates in the calendar.
Bermúdez knows the American game from personal experience. The former Madrid-born forward spent half of the 2014 season with Western New York Flash and recalled the consistently strong attendances around women’s football in the country.
She praised the commitment shown by American supporters and institutions to the women’s game, adding with a smile that it would be a pleasure to play in front of a crowd backing the home side.
Iturregi recalls an early American inspiration
Spain assistant coach Iraia Iturregi also reflected on the influence of the United States on players of her generation. The former Athletic Club player spent time at Florida State University in 2006, where she saw how seriously women’s football was supported within the college environment.
For Iturregi, the United States team had already been a rare point of reference when she was growing up. She remembered watching the 1999 World Cup final in Los Angeles, where the Americans defeated China, and asking her mother for the shirt of Mia Hamm, then one of the sport’s defining figures in the country.
Bermúdez closed the Washington event by hoping that the two contests would provide an entertaining spectacle for spectators. With Spain and the United States among the teams expected to challenge for the World Cup in Brazil, the weekend in the American capital and the return meeting in Pennsylvania offer an early glimpse of the standard awaiting next summer.
