Tomé calls up a team for the Euro Cup led by the core players from Barcelona and Mariona Caldentey.

Montse Tomé, the Spanish coach, announced on Tuesday the list of 23 players who will participate in the Eurocup in Switzerland, starting on July 2 and ending on Sunday, the 27th. The Asturian coach, who leads one of the teams expected to compete for the tournament, has made a consistent selection without major surprises, highlighting the core of FC Barcelona and Mariona Caldentey, who was chosen as the best player of the season in England during her first year at Arsenal. “I feel that the team has the capacity to go for everything, and this is felt by me as the coach, by the technical team, and by the players,” Tomé stated today.

The 23 trusted footballers called up by the coach are the same ones who were part of the group in the last window of the first phase of the Nations League, which took place from late May to early June. In those two matches, Spain defeated Belgium away and England at home to qualify for the final phase of the competition, with the coach relying on 25 players. Two of them, defenders Sheila García (Real Madrid) and Lucía Corrales (Sevilla), have dropped out for the Euro, but the other 23 players were part of the call-up for the matches against Belgium and England.

The Asturian coach, whose contract ends at the conclusion of the Eurocup, is taking only five midfielders for the three midfield positions in the usual 4-3-3 system used by Spain. They are Patricia Guijarro, Aitana Bonmatí, Alexia Putellas—the starting trio at Barça and in the national team—Maite Zubieta, and Vicky López. Tomé has also used Laia Aleixandri as a pivot and Mariona as an interior in some matches, thus enabling her to count on more options in that area of the field if deemed appropriate. “Let’s also remember the players who have been injured this year,” said the coach, naming midfielder Tere Abelleira, who tore her anterior cruciate ligament during a training session at Wembley last February, forward Inma Gabarro, and central defender Laia Codina, whose injuries have prevented them from being in Switzerland.

The backbone of the national team in the Euro will consist of the core of FC Barcelona. The expected starting goalkeeper is Cata Coll. In defense, the fixed players are full-back Ona Batlle and central defender and captain Irene Paredes. The starting midfield is the one used by Barça, and notable forwards include Claudia Pina, one of the most in-form Spanish players, and Salma Paralluelo. Additionally, another key player like Mariona left the Catalan club last year after ten seasons in which she won all possible titles. In total, 10 of the 23 footballers called for Switzerland belong to Barcelona, and there are another four with a Barça past.

As expected, the coach has left Jenni Hermoso out of the tournament, as she has not been called since October. This is the fifth consecutive call-up in which the 35-year-old player from Madrid is absent, who last May took a jab at Tomé on X after the coach stated that the door to the national team was not closed to anyone. “Tired of hearing my name amid so much falsehood. Saying things directly and as they really are shouldn’t be that hard. There’s no need for roundabout ways when you can go straight to the point,” Hermoso wrote on the social network, who was chosen as the second-best player of the World Cup that Spain won in Australia in August 2023 and has scored five goals in 19 matches with her club, Tigres, since January.

With the message on X, it was clear that the bridges between Tomé and her were completely blown up. The coach opted to set aside the all-time top scorer for Spain after reducing her influence in the team during the 2024 Olympic Games and understanding that she would not accept her new role. Her decision came with the Rubiales case—the trial for the non-consensual kiss that the former president of the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF), Luis Rubiales, gave to the player on the lips on August 20, 2023, in Sydney, right after Spain won the World Cup—still open. “We have done with her the same work that we have done with all. We have evaluated her year at Tigres, we have spoken with her coach several times, and we have done what we need to do to see what we need or do not need from the players. In this case, in her position, we have Patri, Zubieta, Aitana, Vicky, Mariona can come in, Pina can come in, and it’s difficult to get into the 23,” Tomé explained.

The coach has also not called Misa Rodríguez (25 years old), the starting goalkeeper for Real Madrid, whom she has not counted on since the completion of the Paris Games, where she was a substitute and had no opportunity despite Cata’s doubts in several matches. The Canary Islander has been among the players with the most saves in Liga F this year—76% of the shots she faces, only behind young Adriana Nanclares (81%), veteran Lola Gallardo (78%), and Portuguese Inês Pereira (77%), according to the model from the performance data company Hudl Statsbomb—but Tomé has chosen to call up Nanclares (23 years old, Athletic) and Esther Sullastres (32, Sevilla), both without experience in Champions League or international tournaments, to complete the goalkeeper list.

In the forward position, Tomé also counts on Esther González. The Gotham striker, in very good form and crucial for her club’s recent victory in the Concacaf Champions Cup, has scored four goals in four matches with the national team since returning at the end of April after nearly a year away. Additionally, she has completed the attacking options with Madrid players Athenea del Castillo and Alba Redondo, along with Lucía García (CF Monterrey) and Cristina Martín-Prieto (Benfica). Before the tournament, Spain will play only one friendly against Japan—ranked 5th in the FIFA ranking—to be held on June 27 at Butarque Stadium (Leganés).

This is the complete list of the 23 players called up by Tomé for the Euro: for the goal, Cata Coll (Barça), Esther Sullastres (Sevilla), and Adriana Nanclares (Athletic); for defense, Olga Carmona (Real Madrid), Laia Aleixandri (Manchester City), María Méndez (Real Madrid), Irene Paredes (Barça), Ona Batlle (Barça), Jana Fernández (Barça), and Leila Ouahabi (Manchester City); for midfield, Maite Zubieta (Athletic), Alexia Putellas (Barça), Aitana Bonmatí (Barça), Patri Guijarro (Barça), and Vicky López (Barça); and for forward, Esther González (Gotham), Lucía García (CF Monterrey), Mariona Caldentey (Arsenal), Athenea del Castillo (Real Madrid), Alba Redondo (Real Madrid), Cristina Martín-Prieto (Benfica), Claudia Pina (Barça), and Salma Paralluelo (Barça).