Jenni Hermoso: Glory, adversity and a cause that still burns
On October 27, 2023, 21 minutes after stepping onto the pitch with a star above the badge on the shirt of her national team for the first time, Jenni Hermoso screamed with cathartic energy. It was the talismanic two-time Ballon d’Or winner Alexia Putellas who had wriggled free in the box and had a shot pushed away by Italy goalkeeper Laura Giuliani, but it was Hermoso who was there to follow it up, stood unmarked a few feet to the left of the penalty spot, sweeping into the far corner. She raced away, two big low fist pumps accompanied her howl of relief, defiance, and celebration.
Hermoso’s 89th minute strike meant Spain won their third Nations League game 1-0 to maintain their unbeaten start to their campaign but that goal meant so much more than three points on the road towards Olympic qualification, so much more in the context of her extraordinary, challenging, epoch-making year.
One where, two months earlier, at the end of a triumphant World Cup final, the greatest moment of her career was instantly shadowed, if not eclipsed, by an unwanted kiss from Luis Rubiales, the president of the Spanish football federation, sparking a controversy that brought the national women’s team’s often private battle against institutional misogyny to a worldwide audience.
At the last gasp of 2023, Hermoso has been named the Guardian’s Footballer of the Year. This award was conceptualised precisely to recognise the achievements of players that have done extraordinary things and overcome great adversity. Hermoso is the eighth winner and fourth woman to win the award, following Khadija Shaw in 2018, Megan Rapinoe, another World Cup winner, in 2019 and Virginia Torrecilla in 2022.
For decades players in Spain have lifted their heads above
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