Barça star's return to women's national team opens door for others amid bitter dispute

With less than 100 days to go until the 2023 Women's World Cup in Australia and New Zealand kicks off, the Spanish national team and many of their best players are still at an impasse. 

Last September, 15 players, six from FC Barcelona, sent emails to the Spanish Football Federation demanding improvements in the organization, and requesting not to be selected for international duty until such changes were made.

Without naming manager Jorge Vilda, who has been in charge since 2015, the subtext was clear that they wanted the manager to go, among other various improvements in professionalism and unspecified reasons which affected their "mental health."

Since then, a bitter dispute has opened up between the federation and the core of players. 

Patri Guijarro, Mapi León, Aitana Bonmatí, Mariona Caldentey, Sandra Paños, and Clàudia Pina are the six Barça players in question, while Andrea Pereira and Leila Ouahabi, who also sent the same email, had left Barça in recent years. 

Then there's the case of Alexia Putellas – the two-time Ballon d'Or and FIFA The Best winner who transcends football in Catalonia and Spain and has become an icon. While the Barça captain did not send one of the emails herself, she is likely to be sympathetic to her club teammates, and media reports suggests she's one of the figures spearheading the sentiment among the camp.

One of the reasons she may not have sent the email was that she is still recovering from an ACL injury that saw her miss last summer's European Championships and has not played since. 

However, Irene Paredes, captain of the Spain team at last summer's tournament, is an outlier for not having sent one of those emails. Despite this, she took up a sort of spokesperson role for the 15 players and answered questions to media regarding their demands, and for some time was left out of the national team. 

Three months out from the World Cup though, Paredes has returned to the fold, playing the full 90 minutes in wins against Norway and China.

This ice-breaking move has given some hope to the players and fans who want to see the group return to the national team and compete at the World Cup. 

The clock is ticking to find a solution to this major problem that could give a poor image if Barça players, and above all a star such as Alexia Putellas, are not at women's football's showpiece event in 2023 with the national team due to off-field matters.