Women’s Soccer Won the World Cup

Spain won the tournament. The whole women’s game will benefit.

During the era of American dominance in women’s soccer, success was largely a product of athleticism, fitness, and bursts of individual skill. The triumph of Spain, which won the World Cup today, represents an evolutionary leap forward, a higher level of refinement and technique. Aitana Bonmati, Spain’s midfield brain and the player of the tournament, dominated games with subtle flicks and visionary through balls; teammates rotated around her intricately.

Indeed, Spain’s performance in this World Cup can be read not only as a tremendous sporting victory but as a polemical thrashing of an argument frequently wielded to disparage the women’s game compared with the men’s. As National Review’s writer Charles C. W. Cooke recently put it, “It’s not good sports.” The final had exactly what he accused the women’s game of lacking: a fascinating clash of tactics played with speed and mesmeric flow, tense and fierce.

It was also the culmination of a tournament that has displayed a new level of skill and sophistication across the planet. Although Spain will fly home with the trophy, women’s soccer as a whole won the World Cup.

Spain is perhaps the vanguard of the next phase of the game. Many of its players, like Bonmati, grew up nurtured by FC Barcelona’s academy—the female branch of the pipeline that has produced stars such as Lionel Messi, Sergio Busquets, and Xavi Hernandez. Barcelona indoctrinates players with an artistic approach, deploying short passing and never allowing the opposition to possess the ball for long.

Players from Barcelona formed the core of this year’s Spanish women’s side—and it was their experience operating within a thoughtful, well-resourced club that reportedly led some of them to demand the same of their national team. When playing for Spain, they were allegedly made to travel long distances by bus and arrived at matches without adequate time to prepare.

Even further, according to The Athletic, their manager, Jorge Vilda, subjected them to infantilizing rules. He demanded that they leave their hotel doors unlocked until midnight so that a coach could check on who was where. Players were required to report when they went out for walks, and with whom. Their bags were searched for any items they might have purchased. Last year, 15 members of the Spanish team went on strike to protest the shabby conditions that their national federation imposed on them. In response, the head of Spanish women’s soccer publicly backed Vilda and demanded that the players on strike apologize before they could return to the team.

This alleged behavior is, alas, unsurprising in women’s soccer, where various male coaches have exploited their power and federations have turned a blind eye. That the Spanish team protested it—and that several of their best players refused to participate in this World Cup because the national federation has only modestly reformed its practices—is itself an essential piece of their triumph. In the tradition of the U.S. women, they managed to simultaneously succeed on the pitch while battling their employer.

[Read: The end of the U.S. women’s soccer dominance]

In a way, that’s the nub of the global story of women’s soccer. Women haven’t just engaged in a righteous quest for fair wages; they have demanded equal opportunities for excellence, the working conditions that will allow them to flourish as players. The improved quality of women’s soccer, displayed during the World Cup, is attributable, in large part, to that now-ubiquitous spirit of protest.

But for all that progress, there’s the continued presence of Vilda, the manager whom many of the Spanish players visibly and justifiably detest. Before the final, the crowd booed his name; after Spain’s victory, many players did not celebrate with him. That Vilda obstinately remains the boss—at least for now—shows how far the game still has to travel.