Sports

What I learned from Netflix’s ‘The Kiss That Changed Spanish Football’ documentary

Published

2 months ago

November 8, 2024

What I learned from Netflix’s ‘The Kiss That Changed Spanish Football’ documentary

From July-August last year, I was in Australia and New Zealand covering Spain’s Women’s World Cup win — and the scandal that followed when the country’s now-disgraced federation president Luis Rubiales gave striker Jenni Hermoso an unsolicited kiss.

From months before the tournament to returning to my home in Barcelona, the experience was surreal. A new Netflix documentary called #SeAcabó: Diario de las campeonas (It’s All Over: The Kiss That Changed Spanish Football) made me relive the calm before the storm I experienced at La Roja’s base in Palmerston North, New Zealand, and the frustration that followed.

It’s worth remembering the turbulence of Spain’s World Cup preparations. When their squad was announced, it didn’t include some of the game’s best players. Fifteen internationals had declared themselves ineligible for mental health reasons until the federation (RFEF) made changes to the way it treated women’s football. Some players went to the World Cup after a nine-month absence from the national team.

There were many internal divisions: between ‘Las 15’, as the players who had sent emails declaring themselves ineligible became known in the media, and others who did not. And also between those who sent the email and decided to go to the tournament anyway, and those who did not.

You would think that climate would make it impossible to win anything but, strangely enough, the opposite happened. Spain made history by winning a knockout game in a major competition for the first time — and went all the way to the final, where they beat England 1-0.

But that was just the beginning. After full time, coach Jorge Vilda pointed to Rubiales in the stands, who responded by grabbing his crotch and pointing to Vilda, as if the success was theirs alone. That ignored the fact this was an exceptional generation and showed the players had been right to say that people did not believe in them. It was disrespectful to everyone, including England’s Lionesses.

Then came Rubiales’ kiss on Hermoso, his non-apology, the pressure on Hermoso to downplay the seriousness of the incident in a proposed video with him, and a speech from Rubiales in which he blamed “false feminism” for how he had been treated and repeated “I’m not going to resign” five times.

GO DEEPER

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Rubiales eventually resigned 21 days after the final following a provisional sanction from world governing body FIFA (it then banned him from football for three years). The legal case over the kiss continues, with Spanish prosecutors seeking a two-and-a-half year prison sentence for him, consisting of a one-year sentence for a charge of alleged sexual assault and a further one-and-a-half years for alleged coercion. The trial will start on February 3 next year.

Rubiales has always claimed Hermoso gave consent for him to kiss her. Hermoso has testified the kiss was not consensual and that attempts were made to force her into saying the opposite. Various Spanish outlets reported that Rubiales denied coercing Hermoso in his testimony before a judge in September last year.

Rubiales will stand trial in February next year (Alberto Gardin/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

The main focus of the documentary is on Alexia Putellas, Hermoso and Irene Paredes. Aitana Bonmati, Laia Codina, Teresa Abelleira, Ivana Andres, Sandra Panos, Olga Carmona and Lola Gallardo also feature.

It goes in chronological order from before those 15 emails were sent, explaining how, even after the 2022 European Championship in England, this talented generation felt as if they were being wasted and that Vilda was not giving them solutions when games were not going well.

As The Athletic has reported, and the players discuss in the documentary, Vilda asked them to leave the door to their hotel rooms open until midnight. He stopped them at points to ask them to show them the inside of their bags — to see if they had bought anything. They reproached him for what they perceived as lazy coaching and a lack of professionalism in training.

In a press conference in September 2022, after he had omitted the 15 players from his squad, Vilda said: “I challenge anyone to come out and say there hasn’t been respect or that there’s been a bad mark in my behaviour with them (the players) in all my career.”

The players say in the documentary that Paredes spoke to Vilda and Rubiales in August 2022 to explain the players’ feelings, and the full conversation was leaked a few days later in the press.

“I was shocked because that conversation was only between me and him (Rubiales),” Paredes explains in the documentary. “He went after us.”

In many stories at the time, Paredes was portrayed as the instigator of a campaign against Vilda. She gave a press conference on September 1 with Guijarro and Hermoso — alongside Vilda — in which they explained they only wanted basic improvements.

“Between games, we were travelling five hours by bus,” Paredes says in the documentary. “We didn’t have our own dressing room. We couldn’t use the gym, the only one we had, because it belonged to the boys, even if they weren’t there. It was a lot of things.”

The documentary details another national team training camp in September 2022. Following the first lunch, all the players were gathered by Vilda. Chairs were put in a circle and the women were encouraged to air their concerns, according to everyone interviewed in the documentary. The Barca contingent was the most vocal at that meeting, and this is where the division between players started.

Vilda after the World Cup final (Joe Prior/Visionhaus via Getty Images)

Those who later declared themselves ineligible, such as Bonmati, felt everything had been said unanimously by the players — but were then disappointed by how others didn’t speak up or contradicted them in the meeting.

“We were asked if we wanted to continue defending that shirt,” says Abelleira. “You were in front of someone who was going to decide whether to call you up or not depending on what we said.”

“In that meeting, I had something inside, I was telling myself that I had to speak up,” Ivana Andres, who was Spain’s captain for the World Cup, says. “But there were very radical positions (being taken) that said they couldn’t take it any more and I thought it was a very high price to pay and I didn’t want to miss a World Cup. In the end, I finished that meeting and I didn’t speak.”

“I was in a very different position to the rest of my team-mates because I had been in the national team for less time,” Carmona adds.

“I feel bad that they all couldn’t say what they felt because we all had the same opinion,” Bonmati says.

“I understood that meeting (was used) as a way of dividing us further,” Paredes says.

It is the first time the players have publicly expressed the divisions that existed within the group. We see how temporary bridges were built between the players and the RFEF — which gave them the minimum guarantees so they would go to the World Cup.

But we also see how Panos was excluded by Vilda despite being the starting goalkeeper for the reigning Spanish and European champions, Barca. Panos says she sent an email asking Vilda to come back for the World Cup and never received a response. Vilda then told a press conference that she had not been called up for sporting reasons.

But what moved me the most — and what makes the documentary so important — is how the aftermath of the kiss on Hermoso is shown.

In a moment of maximum euphoria, at the peak of happiness in her sporting career, having achieved something she thought would never happen, Hermoso stood on the stage to be given her winner’s medal. Rubiales took full advantage of that moment of weakness to ruin it forever, kissing her on the lips.

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Jenni Hermoso: Record goalscorer, serial swearer and icon of Spanish sport

In Hermoso’s head, something started to feel wrong. She was happy about the win, but something wasn’t right. Putellas and Paredes say Hermoso approached them to tell them about the kiss, looking for someone to tell her if it was right or wrong.

Hermoso is always the dressing-room joker, the one who is always in a good mood, the DJ, the one who makes her colleagues laugh. In the adrenaline of the moment, Putellas says she thought Hermoso was joking when she said Rubiales had kissed her.

The striker didn’t get the answers she was looking for at first and opted to say no more and keep celebrating — nobody wants to be the party pooper when you have won a World Cup. Then some of the players began to echo what had happened in a live broadcast on social media.

“Who kissed?,” goalkeeper Misa Rodriguez asked during the celebrations, as captured in a live stream from the time.

“Eh, but I didn’t like it,” Hermoso responded, still celebrating but making clear it wasn’t about her. “And what do I do? Look at me, just look at me (in that moment).”

During the celebrations, Rubiales went down to the dressing room. He came in, made jokes, said they all had a trip to Ibiza paid for when they returned from the tournament and that his wedding to Hermoso would take place there, as multiple videos from the players’ live streams showed. Thinking it was all a joke, the players celebrated. Rubiales went to grab Hermoso to recreate the image of a bride and groom at a wedding, while she made a face of clear discomfort.

The jokes continued until Paredes came down from the World Cup cloud and warned the others. “Girls, this is serious,” she said, as she details in the documentary.

Hermoso was awarded the Socrates Award at the recent Ballon d’Or ceremony for her humanitarian efforts (Jose Breton/Pics Action/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

The different recordings and testimonies show the different phases Hermoso went through.

According to the documentary, a pivotal moment for Hermoso came in Ibiza. While the team were enjoying a well-deserved holiday as world champions, Hermoso and the players who accompanied her describe how she went through hell, as she felt she was put under pressure by the RFEF to make a statement saying everything was fine.

As Hermoso, Bonmati and Andres describe, Rubiales tried to pressure her on the plane home from the World Cup, attempting to record a video first with her and then with one of the captains to say everything was fine. Bonmati says she was even asked to appear on TV to reduce tensions, but they all refused.

“Rubiales, Jenni and I had a chat,” Codina says. “He told us that he was meeting a woman and that this woman had spoken to him and told him that nothing was wrong with the kiss, that she should just make the video and that was it.”

The pressure increased. Hermoso received messages from then-national team director and former Newcastle United striker Albert Luque saying that Rubiales didn’t deserve that and that she should take a stand. Those are messages the player herself shows in the documentary, including ones sent to a friend of hers when Hermoso stopped responding.

Prosecutors are seeking a one-and-a-half-year sentence for Luque for the charge of alleged coercion. He denied coercing Hermoso when he testified as a defendant in the Rubiales case in October 2023, according to several Spanish media reports, but admitted to having sent her messages.

GO DEEPER

Rubiales: Prosecutors seeking two-and-a-half-year prison sentence for ex-RFEF president

“They told me that it wasn’t going to stay like this,” Hermoso explains to Putellas and Paredes. “Threats. There came a point when I was walking and I had to turn around and look. I was afraid.”

Hermoso says the RFEF’s marketing director, Ruben Rivera, told her to call the federation’s integrity department to say “nothing” had happened. She says: “I didn’t want to, I didn’t know what I was signing”. Prosecutors are also looking to charge Rivera for alleged coercion. In March, he told radio station Cadena SER, “I have never coerced anyone in my life”.

While Hermoso was in Ibiza, Putellas and the other players told her it was better not to think about it, telling her to disconnect and enjoy the holiday. Then, Hermoso started crying.

“When I found out about everything in Ibiza, I felt terrible,” Putellas says. “You were telling us without saying it directly: ‘Help me’. And we were like, forcing you to think that nothing was happening, to say: ‘Forget about it, you’ve had a great World Cup, celebrate’.”

Hermoso faced harassment on social media. When she left her house, photos of her were posted on the internet with comments asking how things could be so bad if she was going for an ice cream.

The most striking thing about the documentary is that many women, to a greater or lesser extent, may identify with what happened to Hermoso. That goes beyond football, her or Rubiales.

What Hermoso goes through, from the time the medal is hung around her neck until she makes a complaint, is perceived in the documentary as a typical pattern of a woman who has been harassed by her superior at work. You convince yourself that everything is fine and try to continue celebrating, then you break down and cry because you realise that the best day of your life has been tarnished forever.

But it also shows that there are many friends like Putellas and Paredes ready to help someone fight. To help them say “It’s over — se acabó”.

(Top photo: Putellas, Hermoso and Paredes lift the World Cup; Jose Breton/Pics Action/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Related Topics:Featured la liga soccer Spain UK Women's Football Womens World Cup

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‘That’s for you, b—’: Why Yankees great CC Sabathia was a Hall of Fame teammate

Published

6 hours ago

January 21, 2025

Press Room

‘That’s for you, b—’: Why Yankees great CC Sabathia was a Hall of Fame teammate

New York Yankees catcher Austin Romine was buckling his shinguards in the dugout when he heard a booming voice and immediately looked up.

It was CC Sabathia. He was pissed.

“First dude,” Sabathia said.

It was Sept. 27, 2018. Sabathia was set on revenge against the Tampa Bay Rays, after reliever Andrew Kittredge aimed a 93-mph fastball at Romine’s head and narrowly missed in the top of the sixth inning with the New York Yankees ahead, 7-0, at Tropicana Field.

He decided he was going to hit catcher Jesús Sucre to lead off the bottom of the inning to send a message. He was going to do it even it meant getting ejected and finishing the season just short of a contract incentive that would have netted him $500,000.

Aware of the pending payday, Romine briefly tried talking Sabathia out of it. He knew Sabathia started the game needing to throw seven innings for the bonus, and the lefty was two innings shy.

“Nope,” Sabathia said, walking away. “First dude.”

On Tuesday, the Baseball Hall of Fame will announce whether Sabathia has earned first-ballot enshrinement.

When voters from the Baseball Writers’ Association of America contemplated Sabathia’s resume, they weighed all the stats and accolades. They considered that he was the ace when the Yankees won the World Series in 2009, a feat the team hasn’t accomplished since. They noted his 2007 American League Cy Young Award with the Cleveland Guardians, plus his 3,093 strikeouts, 251 wins and six All-Star appearances over his 19-year career. And some likely were still awed that Sabathia saved the Milwaukee Brewers’ 2008 playoff run by making each of his final three starts of the season on three days rest.

What the voters couldn’t quantify, however, was the outsized impact he had on his teammates and the respect he garnered throughout the game.

Never was that more on display on a public stage than in Sabathia’s last start of 2018.

After Sabathia forfeited the half-a-million dollar bonus by plunking Sucre on the butt and getting thrown out, he pointed to Kittredge in the Rays’ dugout and TV cameras could read his lips:

“That’s for you, bitch.”

At the time, it seemed like a shocking move. He had thrown just 54 pitches over five innings, and he was cruising, dotting his signature slider on both sides of the plate and handcuffing righties with the cut fastball that resurrected him late in his career. He wasn’t going to get another chance in the regular season to reach the incentive.

But to Romine and to manager Aaron Boone, it wasn’t a surprise.

All game, the Rays had chirped from their dugout at Sabathia for pitching inside and then hitting Jake Bauers on the hand.

When Romine collapsed to the dirt to avoid Kittredge’s fastball, he had a simple question to the catcher Sucre: “Why?”

For Sabathia, there was no question what had to happen next. He had to protect his teammates, even if home plate umpire Vic Carapazza already had issued warnings to both dugouts.

As Romine dusted himself off, Sabathia left the Yankees’ dugout to shout at the Rays. Boone held him back, walking him to the dugout.

In the process, Boone asked Sabathia not to retaliate. He knew it was a futile request.

“I remember being like, ‘Yeah, let’s not have him throw at anyone here,’ and knowing in my head that I don’t think he’s listening to me in this spot,” Boone said.

The fastball Sabathia hit Sucre with was 92.5 mph — the fastest pitch he threw all night.

“It speaks volumes to the old school baseball player he was, and the kind of baseball player he came up with,” Romine said. “No one is throwing at your guys, especially at the head. I think that really set something off in him. I’m never going to say it was about me. It was about his team. It was about his catcher and about his team being thrown at, and he’s been the guy to protect his team throughout his career. You’re throwing at the nine-hole backup catcher, and that’s one thing. You’re not going to throw at the three-hole, four-hole hitters.”

“That’s the type of guy you want to go to battle with,” Aaron Judge said at the time.

“I don’t really make decisions based on money, I guess,” Sabathia said after the 12-1 win. “I just felt like it was the right thing to do.”

Romine played parts of eight seasons as Sabathia’s teammate. He said Sabathia was a de facto captain in the Yankees’ clubhouse, and that the respect Sabathia received from his opponents was unlike anything he’d ever seen.

“He’s still the only guy ever where, generally, leadoff hitters come over and they tip their hat to the opposing manager,” Romine said. “Well, they would do that, and CC would be sitting on that water cooler, and the leadoff hitter would tip their hat to CC. It was funny to watch.”

“He’s getting ready to go to the Hall of Fame because of his excellence on the mound and the numbers he put up and the things he did,” Boone said. “But I think you’d be hard pressed to find somebody that he ever played with that probably didn’t have him near the top of their all-time teammate list. He’s such a connector. Easy to relate to. Easy to talk to. Made you feel important. Lived for the team over his own personal stuff.

“The great ones that are like that, and Judgey is like that a little bit too. I feel like there’s an underlying confidence that they know that they are going to get theirs and do well. So they don’t really even care about it. It’s about winning and the team, and they live it. CC lived it over and over again.”

At the end of the season, the Yankees gave Sabathia the bonus even though the ejection meant he came up just short.

“Grand scheme of things,” Boone said, “and the career he had, the $500,000 — it didn’t matter to him. Just didn’t matter. His first thing was being a teammate — being a great teammate. The competitive part of things.

“In the end, it just added to the legend of CC.”

(Top photo of Sabathia after his ejection against the Rays in September 2018: Mark LoMoglio/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

Sports

Coveted rookie card of Pirates star Paul Skenes pulled by young collector after offer from MLB team

Published

6 hours ago

January 21, 2025

Press Room

Coveted rookie card of Pirates star Paul Skenes pulled by young collector after offer from MLB team

The coveted one-of-a-kind autographed MLB debut patch card of Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Paul Skenes is no longer on the market.

An 11-year-old collector from Southern California decided to pull the card, which was featured in the 2024 Topps Chrome Update set.

The card of Skenes, who was named the 2024 National Leage Rookie of the Year, drew significant interest when the trading card and collectible manufacturer unveiled it in November.

Shortly after the card became public knowledge, the Pirates became vocal about getting it.

Pittsburgh Pirates starting pitcher Paul Skenes pitches against the Chicago Cubs during the fourth inning at PNC Park. (Charles LeClaire/USA Today Sports)

While any Skenes autographed card carries some value, the MLB debut patch edition is a one-of-a-kind collectible, making it highly sought.

The Pirates offered a lengthy package of perks in exchange for the card. A pair of premium Pirates season tickets for a three-year period, a meet and greet with Skenes and autographed jerseys were among offerings from the team.

Despite the latest turn of events, the Pirates confirmed the team remains ready to honor the offer.

ICHIRO SUZUKI HEADLINES NEWEST BASEBALL HALL OF FAME CLASS; 2 OTHERS ELECTED TO COOPERSTOWN

“An 11-year-old collector just pulled the Paul Skenes 1/1 Debut Patch card! Our offer still stands… you know where to find us,” the Pirates posted on X Tuesday.

LSU gymnast Livvy Dunne, who is dating Skenes, added another incentive to whomever locates the card.

“Let’s raise the stakes…the person who finds this card can sit with me at a Pirates game in my suite,” Dunne wrote in a post to her Instagram story.

Paul Skenes and Olivia Dunne on the set of ESPN “College GameDay” at the LSU Quad Nov. 9, 2024, in Baton Rouge. (LSU Athletics/University Images via Getty Images)

Skenes, 22, delivered a season to remember in 2024, finishing 11-3 with a 1.96 ERA and 170 strikeouts.

Before winning NL Rookie of the Year, Skenes was named to the MLB All-Star team. Skenes was the top pick in the 2023 MLB Draft and made his big league debut in May.

Pittsburgh Pirates starting pitcher Paul Skenes pitches in the first inning against the Milwaukee Brewers at American Family Field. (Benny Sieu/USA Today Sports)

Rookies have worn MLB debut patches on their jerseys since 2023. Topps acquired the patches and created the unique cards.

In November, Sports Collectors Digest projected the card could command a six-figure price tag.

Follow Fox News Digital’s sports coverage on X, and subscribe to the Fox News Sports Huddle newsletter.

Chantz Martin is a sports writer for Fox News Digital.

Sports

Angel City unveils new facility in effort 'to build a winning culture'

Published

7 hours ago

January 21, 2025

Press Room

Angel City unveils new facility in effort 'to build a winning culture'

When Willow Bay and her husband, Disney CEO Bob Iger, became controlling owners of Angel City last July, they inherited a women’s soccer team that had lost more games than it had won, had fewer playoff appearances than it had suspensions from the league and would end the year by parting ways with its second general manager and second head coach in three seasons.

So on Wednesday, when Bay cut the ribbon on the team’s massive new performance center at California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks, it was with the hope that would mark the start of Angel City’s turnaround as well.

“This is the vision of this team that we’re helping support and execute,” said Bay, dean of the USC Annenberg School of Communication and Journalism, who joined her husband in investing $50 million in cash for the team to expand its budget and ease its losses. “It was very clear that we needed to invest in football operations here and support the leadership and support the players and making sure they had all the resources they needed to build a winning culture.”

The Angel City training center comes complete with a modern weight room.

(Al Seib / For The Times)

The opening of the performance center comes six days after Angel City announced the hiring of Mark Parsons, one of the most successful coaches in NWSL history, as its sporting director. Parsons said the new training facility will be a big help in recruiting women to come play for his new team.

“If I can get them here and get them to walk around, then it’s going to be very hard for people not wanting to be in this environment,” he said. “When I think of Angel City and why I want to be here, what has started with an ownership group and investors to build a brand that is world-leading, how female athletes should be supported, knowing the ambition now and putting in a performance center that no other women’s sports team has in the world, you’ve kind of touched everything.”

The performance center is part of a 9-acre training base Angel City inherited from the Rams when the NFL team moved to Woodland Hills in August. It is the largest and most modern in the NWSL history, boasting a 5,400-square-foot gym, three locker rooms, a film room, a medical treatment and hydrotherapy area, and a children’s playroom, among other things. There is one full soccer pitch and an adjoining half field.

It’s a big step up from the last three seasons when Angel City worked out of a pair of temporary trailers in a far corner of the CLU campus and used a weight room that wasn’t actually a room, but a huge tent. Angel City would not say exactly how much it spent on refurbishing the facility but said it was a “multimillion-dollar custom rebuild.”

The move into the new facility comes at a time when the league is adjusting to radical new rules that have altered the building of rosters. Last September the NWSL became the first major professional league in the U.S. to ditch the draft, which bound players to the team that selected them. The new collective-bargaining agreement between the league and the players’ association also allows for out-of-contract players to negotiate with every team in the league and gives players the right to block trades to teams they don’t want to play for.

As a result, signing players now means recruiting them first.

Angel City FC general manager Mark Parsons gestures with his left hand as he addresses reporters Tuesday.

“My job has just got much, much more easy with this facility,” Parsons said. “A few more clubs over the last few years have been investing. [But] this is unlike nowhere else. I’m excited to be a part of an organization that cares that much.

“But I’m also excited that my skill set just got a bit easier, because everyone’s going to want to be here.”

Christen Press, a two-time World Cup champion and the first player the team signed, said the facility will help make Angel City a destination.

“For the last three years, when we go as a club and talk to top players in the world, we didn’t have this facility to offer,” she said. “It’s a huge part of our day-to-day experience as an athlete and it matters.”

Whether it will be enough to turn around a team that lost a franchise-record 13 games last season, finishing 12th in the 14-team NWSL, remains to be seen. In the last month Matt Wade, the assistant general manager, and technical director Mark Wilson agreed to a one-year contract extension with Press, added French forward Julie Dufour and Australian defender Alanna Kennedy, and signed Mississippi State midfielder Macey Hodge.

Still, the team will begin preseason training Wednesday without a permanent replacement for coach Becki Tweed and with Parsons just a week into his job replacing general manager Angela Mangano Hucles.

A look at the locker room inside Angel City FC's training facility.

Parsons said the team has signed Sam Laity, who formerly worked in Seattle and Houston, to manage the club on an interim basis as he searches for a permanent coach.

“Getting the right person is the priority,” Parsons said. “If the right person is available sooner rather than later, fine. If we have to wait for that right person and they’re not available until the summer, then we’re open to that as well.”

For the time being, Bay is promising to be patient and supportive. The results, however, must follow eventually.

“Bob and I were very clear about investing the resources in this team and the people who lead and manage it. And most certainly the women who play for it,” she said.

But, she added, “we know how important it is to do our best to bring a championship to this city.”