Irene Paredes: “We were made to feel that football was not our place”

The Gipuzkoa-born defender has played every minute of Spain’s journey to the final. She joined Jorge Vilda in the press room in Sydney, to look ahead to Sunday’s Women’s World Cup final - by far the biggest and most important game of her and her team mates’ careers to date.

The final: “It’s been a dream of mine for a long. long time. Throughout my career, I haven’t had any references. I’ve got here simply because playing football was what I liked doing. These are the games you want to play. We are in the final of a World Cup - which they say is the easy part because it is very difficult to get here. We have to enjoy it and play our game, which is what we like to do”.

Changes in the women’s game: “It’s about mentality, physical condition, building experience. It’s the accumulation of a lot of hard work to be able to be here today”.

Pre-match feelings: “There aren’t any nerves at the moment, some will come in tomorrow. We have all of the things that have contributed to getting us to the final - training and being focused. And also enjoying ourselves. We are very clear that we have to focus on the game. The captaincy issue is now settled, I’m not a captain, there are three other captains”.

Barcelona team mates Lucy Bronze and Keira Walsh: “Yes, we congratulated each other on getting to the final, but we haven’t spoken in the last few days. Tomorrow we will be rivals, but we are going all out to beat them. On days like this I prefer not to have contact”.

England: “They are a team, the result of a lot of people who have worked very well. We have evolved, we’re a mixture of older, experienced players and youth. We have confidence in ourselves. The other day I mentioned how important it is to play this game, and because of everything that it will generate elsewhere. Many of us have grown up thinking that playing football was not our place. Over the years we have been placed in those conditions. If it serves to let those people know that this game, football, is also ours, that means history will be made, and that would make us very happy. A change is taking place, people support us. This is history. We know that when things are going well, people talk more about us. If getting this far is a massive achievement in terms of sport, it’s also down to what happens off the pitch. We are delighted with how things are going.”

Beginnings: “Spain has always been a football country, but we were made to feel that it was not our place. The generation before mine was very strong-willed, they were stubborn. That today that the lower categories are doing so well is no coincidence. You have to focus on football, what is generated around us remains. And if you win and if you don’t win, we don’t think about that. I’m just trying to control my nerves to play the best game possible tomorrow”.