There are sporting achievements that happen at the right moment and grow over time. Beyond the triumph, taking perspective provides a context that helps to place them in their true place in history. They tend to be events that have a great impact on societies. Once they happen, something begins to move. Victory is not the end, but the beginning of a movement that, first, will direct media attention to the protagonists, then focus on the different life paths that have led them to that point and, finally, connect it with the specific moment that citizens are experiencing and explain the reasons that make them a transversal phenomenon of great importance that, suddenly, is at the center of public conversation.
A year ago, the Spanish women’s football team lifted the World Cup trophy at the tournament held in Australia and New Zealand. Interest grew as the competition progressed. In Spain alone, nearly nine million people watched the match on television. But that peak audience would have nothing to do with what was to come. The footballers had achieved something much more important than a title: they were making society progress. A society that, in order to understand the extent of the change, had to reflect on where these sportswomen came from and what real meaning their success would have. The past, present and future, explained through football.
Campeonas (Planeta) is the book written by journalist Sara Gutiérrez Alcaraz – special correspondent for Radio Nacional de España to cover the tournament – in which she presents the 23 footballers who formed part of the team. Profiles in which the chronicle of those days is mixed with the personality and career of each of them. A book to understand the paths they travelled and continue to travel, the values, fears, desires, problems or obsessions. A book to learn how they lived the key moments of the competition and to understand the significance of a feat that goes far beyond sport.
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