Last Tuesday, the seven-a-side women’s football team of the Universitat de València was proclaimed runner-up in the 3rd European Universities Games, which take place in the cities of Zagreb and Rijeka (Croatia).
The team led by José Andrés Menchero began eagerly the competition and proving that they wanted to win again the championship title they got in the 2014 Rotterdam Games. They opened the competition last 14 July, playing the first match against the Norwegian School of Economics (Norway) with a 2-1 win of the Valencian team. The second match in the team stage faced the Universitat with the University of Frankfurt (Germany), being the former the one classified as first in its group with a 0-2 score result. From this moment, the final stage was a hard time that the Menchero girls knew how to solve in the quarter-finals against the University of Innsbruck (Austria), after a 1-1 followed by a penalty shootout which ended with a 3-0, a clear declaration of intentions. Thus, the Universitat team began the fight for the medals. Last Monday, the semi-final against Ural Federal University (Russia) took place, a close game that ended with Alicia Moreno’s goal during the lost time, getting the 2-1 which classified the Valencian team for the Games’ final match.
On Tuesday 19 July, everything was ready for the match between the Universitat de València and the University of Montpellier (France). The Universitat’s team started in control of the match until the second arrival to the area, when the French team scored the first goal. Some minutes later, they scored the second and third goal in the two counter-attacks, arriving to half time down. In the second part, the French team kept a strong and intense play, which allowed them to score the fourth goal, ensuring no possibilities for the Valencian team. Finally, the intensity and skill of the attacks made of it a very competitive final which was won by the French team, making the UV runner-up of these European Games.
The selector, J. Andrés Menchero, said that the team “was proud and happy to having reached the maximum level -the Games’ final- for the second consecutive year. We made the most of it, but we were conscious of the opponent’s quality. We have not given up our style, what we consider important, but in the end, the ball goes in or not, and in this occasion it could not be so”.
The university community supports the team
As on previous university sports occasions, the Physical Education and Sports Service offered live coverage and monitoring of the women’s team through its web page (www.uv.es/sef) and its official social networks (@sefuv y www.facebook.com/sefuv) in which all the fans could find immediate information on the results of the matches, feelings and statements of the protagonists.
The following and participation through the social networks has been very high regarding previous fixtures. In the case of the seven-a-side women’s football team in the 3rd European Universities Games, publications had more than 26,700 and more than 2,300 interactions were reached.
An non-stop winning team
The women’s football team has a lot of support from the university community thanks to its great career. The team has been proclaimed 7 times the CADU champion. Nationally, it has been able to be in the podium 8 times (4 times as Spain’s Champion, two as runner-up, and other two times in the third place). The team has also competed against the best teams in the European level in multiple occasions, in which it has won the gold medal in the last European Games (Rotterdam), the bronze medal in its first edition (Córdoba), and the fourth place in three of them.
