The best way to sum up the opening game in Group C might just be the moment when the Costa Rica goalkeeper got cramp. Daniela Solera’s save count was in double figures and she had more touches than any of her teammates on a wet, windy evening in Wellington when Spain had threatened to rack up the kind of score that needs spelling out, but at the end of 90 sometimes desperate minutes spent with her opponents in dangerously close proximity, she had been beaten only three times.
All three came inside six first-half minutes, strikes from Esther González, Aitana Bonmatí and an own goal from Valeria del Campo giving Spain a victory that stopped short of being a serious statement but occasionally came close.
When the third went in, they hadn’t been playing half an hour and yet the surprise was that it had taken that long. Even more unexpected was that it turned out to be the last, Costa Rica holding on. By the time the teams withdrew at half-time, Spain had racked up 300 passes, 12 corners, 50 crosses and 25 shots. Oh, and they had missed a penalty. By the time it ended, those numbers said 588, 22, 85, and 45. The best chance Costa Rica had was handed to them and felt a little like a product of how one-sided this was, Irene Paredes’s loose ball back forcing Misa Rodríguez to slide out to clear from Melissa Herrera. It was the goalkeeper’s only real intervention.
A deep 4-5-1 suggested that Costa Rica expected to be dominated, assimilating Spain’s superiority, but this was something else. It wasn’t that Amelia Valverde’s team struggled to get out of their half; it was that they were finding it hard enough to get out of their own area, that line doing little to hold Spain back.
Of those 25 first-half shots, 19 were inside the box. The width came from Olga Carmona and Ona Batlle, more wingers than full-backs. Teresa Abelleira played from deep, the block upon which it was all built. Jenni Hermoso dropped off the front, foot on the ball, apparently with all the time in the world. González moved among defenders who never seemed to be able to find her.
And then there was Bonmatí, always in the right place which was, well, everywhere, or so it seemed. What a player she is, feet as fast as they are soft. Gliding through the game, with a steel to go with the smoothness. It was her lovely flick that released González to deliver the low cross from which Del Campo turned the ball into her own net from close range, a moment of misfortune that was also a consequence of how deep they had been forced.
Within two minutes a second had come, another touch of technical perfection allowing Bonmatí to step away from Gloriana Villalobos and guide the ball into the corner. Four minutes later – in which time Solera had saved twice – and there was a third. Hermoso hit the bar and González hooked in the rebound.
Soon, it could have been four but Hermoso’s penalty, struck too softly and centrally, was stopped by Solera. If a penalty save can ever be described as simple, this one was.
Still Spain came, reaching 26 shots within 10 seconds of the second half. More followed:. Carmona hit the bar, an outrageous turn and nutmeg from Hermoso on Villalobos set up González, and a sharp run from Salma Paralluelo ended with a save from Solera. There were plenty of those; although Spain were a little hurried now, a touch too quick to take on the shot or deliver the cross, some of the fluidity lost in the rain, the goalkeeper had emerged as a central figure, Carmona the next Spaniard denied.
With 20 minutes to go, Solera got cramp and her teammates may well have felt grateful for the pause; for a couple of minutes at least Spain stopped running at them. Within seconds of starting again, another Carmona effort flew just past the bar, but even with Alexia Putellas introduced – there was one sensational piece of skill from her – and Solera’s calf forcing her to ground again, Spain had to settle for three.
