Thread by @MichaelEmilio_

The story of Jorge Vilda and the
15 players who left — A thread:

• Part 1 — The U17’s & U19’s

Jorge Vilda was trusted with leading the golden generation of Spanish women’s football as he started his managerial career in 2009. He took on two jobs: The assistant-coach for the Spanish U19 women’s team, and the head-coach of the U17’s.

Across these two teams he would work with a bunch of young and incredibly talented players. Most notably Alexia Putellas, Patricia Guijarro, Aitana Bonmatí, Nerea Pérez, Marta Torrejón & Mariona Caldentey just to mention a few.

He stayed as the U19 assistant-coach until 2013, and was the head-coach of the U17’s until 2014. That year he took over the role as the U19’s head-coach.

He would only stay in that position for a year though, as in 2015 RFEF appointed him as the head-coach of the first-team.

Throughout his 5 years with the youth-teams, and despite all the great talent at hand, Vilda would only leave with two U17 Euro gold medals to show for it.

This is a stat that still stands to this day as he is yet to win any other major title — 14 years later into his career.

🇪🇸 An overview of Spain’s U17
and U19 EURO & W-World Cup
results though their history:

2004 — U19 EURO 🏆
2009 — Vilda appointed ⬅️
2010 — U17 EURO 🏆
2011 — U17 EURO 🏆
2015 — Vilda left ➡️
2017 — U19 EURO 🏆
2018 — U17 EURO 🏆
2018 — U17 WWC 🏆
2018 — U19 EURO 🏆
2022 — U19 EURO 🏆
2022 — U17 WWC 🏆
2022 — U19 WWC 🏆
2023 — U19 EURO 🏆

• Part 2 — The First-team

In august of 2015, Jorge Vilda was officially appointed as the head coach of Spain’s WNT. Already at that stage many questioned this decision from RFEF as Vilda was still relatively unproven, while the Spain team he was now taking over were shaping up to become “one of the best national teams in the world of women’s football”.

Although, that prophecy above would sadly never come to life in the way many Spain fans hoped.

Vilda’s first big test came in the 2017 EURO where Spain would barely scrape through the group stages by goal difference on 3 points. They beat Portugal before losing to both England & Scotland.

The tournament would still be short-lived though as they would go out in the first KO match after drawing 0-0 to Austria, followed by a loss in the penalty shootout.

The next opportunity for Vilda to showcase what he could do was the 2019 Women’s World Cup which took place in France.

Spain would suffer the same faith yet again though — as they were knocked out by the USWNT in the first KO match here as-well.

After two very underwhelming outcomes in the two last major competitions, Jorge Vilda got a third chance with everyone’s eyes focused at the 2022 EURO.

The exact same thing happened here though, as Spain would yet again fly home following the first KO match after facing England.

• Part 3 — The 15 Players

After 3 incredibly disappointing tournaments (and a whole heap of other issues that we’ll get deeper into as we go) — it would become clear that the playing-squad was far from pleased with Jorge Vilda and the rest of the coaching staff.

Not only because of his lackluster tactics and coaching style, but a lot of his decisions and behavior would also leave a very bad taste.

This resulted in the three captains Alexia Putellas, Irene Paredes and Patri Guijarro trying to resolve said issues behind the scenes & away from the spotlight with a private, formal complaint to the RFEF.

Some of the complaints were:

• Lack of privacy — Jorge Vilda infamously prohibited players to lock their hotel-room doors while on national team duty with Spain.

• Lack of rest — As Jorge Vilda would rarely rotate resulting in players quickly being burnt out.

• Lack of medical assistance — RFEF would not invest properly into the Spanish WNT, causing injuries to be commonplace.

• Lack of nutritionists — Yet again a case of RFEF not prioritizing the WNT by not supplying the basic needs for top-level athletes.

• Lack of match analysis and tactical understanding

• Low quality training sessions — As players reported to have been in a worse physical shape when returning to their respective clubs after having been on NT duty.

Despite the seriousness of the complaints, the squad wouldn’t even get a proper response from the football federation, sadly.

Weeks would go by with no real answers, no action taken and no changes made internally by RFEF. They practically ignored all of it.

This would not stay as a private matter for long though as despite their inability to give the players a clear answer privately, RFEF had no problem making a big public statement about the situation where they expressed their full support towards Jorge Vilda.

To add insult to injury, RFEF had the nerve to say that the players should “Recognise their mistakes and ask for forgiveness” if they wanted to come back to the NT.

Vilda also stated: “This is an embarrassment, and I only want players who are 100% committed to my project. If you don’t value what it means to wear this shirt and represent your country, you don’t deserve to be with us.”

After the words from Vilda and RFEF, the players were being labeled as “blackmailers” by certain fans and media alike.

Many of the players had simply had enough, and on the 23rd of September 2022 — 15 Spanish national team players posted an open letter to the federation.

Letter #1 — Spanish (Original)
Letter #2 — English (Translated)
Letter #3 — French (Translated)
Letter #4 — German (Translated)

This letter would result in many of the players being excluded from the Spanish national team squad, with some still refusing to play for the team to this day.

Some of the players later returned to national team duty as “Certain changes had been made by RFEF”, but Jorge Vilda still stays strong in his position as the head coach. As for those who did return, it’s clear that the situation is still far from ideal and rather just a temporary solution to be able to play WWC.

• Part 4 — The Conclusion

As a coach, Jorge Vilda is simply mediocre. He’s someone with a very basic tactical understanding on how to play & manage football. Someone who struggles to rotate his team & put together effective training sessions. Someone who has overstayed his position for way too long now.

This whole story exceeds way beyond just who he is as a coach though — as he simply doesn’t treat his players with the respect and professionally they deserve. He also doesn’t act in the best interest of the team when looking at many of the things he does (or rather doesn’t do).

RFEF definitely deserves their fair share of criticism as-well though.

Their first mistake was making Vilda their first-team head-coach, and their second mistake was being so stubborn and hellbent on keeping him in that position at all costs. A neglectful federation.

They need to provide the Spanish women’s national team with the same standards and show them the same level of professionalism as their male-counterparts both on and off the football pitch.

If Spain wins the Women’s World Cup this year — they did it despite having Jorge Vilda, not because of him.

Thanks for reading. 🙌

@AJafclifton Next time, try maybe actually reading the thing you’re replying to before speaking.