BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — If the women's soccer players of Spain have gone from nobodies to title contenders in less than a decade, it hasn't come easy.
The national team has had to fight for better coaching, decent travel conditions, and modern training facilities.
It paid off with a World Cup title in 2023, the Nations League crown last year, and on Sunday they face England in the European Championship final.
“It has been a constant with the national team that we have had to fight for acceptable work conditions that would allow us to play at our best,” former Spain defender Marta Torrejón told The Associated Press by phone on Friday.
Torrejón lived through the lean years, the time when playing for her country felt like, in her words, a “waste of time.”
And she knows from talking with Barcelona teammates who still play for their country how much things have improved.
Torrejón retired from international soccer after the 2019 World Cup as Spain's then most-capped player with 90 appearances. The 35-year-old has since helped Barcelona win three Champions League titles and a slew of other trophies.
She also played a part in one of the revolts Spain’s women have staged to demand more from the men who run the game.
After the 2015 World Cup, Torrejón and other players successfully pushed for the removal of coach Ignacio Quereda, who had run the team for nearly three decades, for his poor preparation ahead of the team’s first appearance in the competition.
Quereda was later accused by former players of verbal abuse, an allegation he denied.
“I enjoyed playing for the national team, but the preparation and attention to the player was minimum. It felt, to put it bluntly, like a waste of time,” Torrejón said. “The level of practice and the level of physical training both plummeted compared to what we had (at Barcelona). It was like taking a step back.
"I am told that isn’t the case now, and I am very glad to hear that.”
Torrejón said she saw steps in the right direction under former Spain coach Jorge Vilda, who replaced Quereda, but felt there was still more untapped potential in the team when she retired.
After Torrejón quit the team, some players announced in 2022 they would no longer play for Vilda unless he ran a more professional operation. He was backed by the federation. Some players returned to play for him, and the team made history by winning the 2023 World Cup.
The celebrations were overshadowed by the behavior of then-federation president Luis Rubiales, who kissed a player on the lips without her consent during the awards ceremony in Sydney.
Vilda supported Rubiales initially and he was swept away with his boss when the players stood up to force change, from the removal of Rubiales to improving the travel conditions and handling of the team. Vilda is now coaching Morocco, which is playing Nigeria in the Women’s Africa Cup of Nations final on Saturday.
Torrejón said she had heard from Alexia Putellas and Irene Paredes, stalwarts of Spain and Barcelona, that things are better since Rubiales and Vilda left.
New coach Montse Tomé has enhanced the training methods. Spain leads the way at the Euros for goals scored, ball possession, passing accuracy and clean sheets.
In Spain's 1-0 semifinal win over Germany, Aitana Bonmatí leaned on the team’s analysts, who informed her the opposing goalkeeper tended to leave her near post unprotected. The result was an exquisite winner from a tight angle.
Torrejón said that sort of tactical insight from the staff was unthinkable a decade ago.
Spain midfielder Patri Guijarro agrees with Torrejón that the sustained investment Barcelona has provided for the past decade in the women’s game has boosted the national team.
“Each and every day we work well in our clubs and I think that is reflected in the achievements of the clubs but also in the national team,” Guijarro said at Spain’s camp in Lausanne, Switzerland, on Friday.
Guijarro also credits the professionalization of Spain’s women’s league in 2021, which allowed players “to dedicate ourselves fully to soccer.”
Guijarro is one of 11 Barcelona players on Spain’s 23-member squad. The Barcelona contingent includes Bonmatí and Putellas, who have split the last four Ballon d’Or awards between them.
Former Barcelona official Xavier Vilajoana oversaw the women’s team and the club’s training academy from 2015-2020. During that time, the club dramatically increased its funding for women’s soccer and built a training program for girls.
Vilajoana said one critical decision was having the same coaches train the boys' and girls' teams. That way the Barcelona style was instilled in all the kids, and that ball-possession, short-passing and pressure became fundamentals of the women's teams as well.
“Let’s not fool ourselves, we spent many years in a very sexist society and that was reflected in women’s soccer. So clearly the change in the mentality of society has helped," Vilajoana told the AP. "But I also believe that Barça’s style of play has helped us see women players in the same way (as men).”
In the background, Spain's strong feminist movement helped get the public behind the players as they made strides for equality and success.
“There were many of us players who gave it our all for the national team but weren’t able to get this far," Torrejón said. "The one thing we knew is that we had talent. We just needed more support.”
AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
FILE - Barcelona's Marta Torrejon eyes the ball during warmup before the women's Champions League group A soccer match between SL Benfica and FC Barcelona at the Benfica Campus in Seixal, outside Lisbon, Jan. 31, 2024. (AP Photo/Armando Franca, File)
Switzerland's Noelle Maritz, rear, and Spain's Patricia Guijarro in action during the Women's Euro 2025 quarterfinal soccer match between Switzerland and Spain at Wankdorf stadium in Bern, Switzerland, Friday July 18, 2025. (Michael Buholzer/Keystone via AP)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Most American presidents aspire to the kind of greatness that prompts future generations to name important things in their honor.
Donald Trump isn't leaving it to future generations.
As the first year of his second term wraps up, his Republican administration and allies have put his name on the U.S. Institute of Peace, the Kennedy Center performing arts venue and a new class of battleships.
That’s on top of the “Trump Accounts” for tax-deferred investments, the TrumpRx government website soon to offer direct sales of prescription drugs, the “Trump Gold Card” visa that costs at least $1 million and the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity, a transit corridor included in a deal his administration brokered between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
On Friday, he plans to attend a ceremony in Florida where local officials will dedicate a 4-mile (6-kilometer) stretch of road from the airport to his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach as President Donald J. Trump Boulevard.
It’s unprecedented for a sitting president to embrace tributes of that number and scale, especially those proffered by members of his administration. And while past sitting presidents have typically been honored by local officials naming schools and roads after them, it's exceedingly rare for airports, federal buildings, warships or other government assets to be named for someone still in power.
“At no previous time in history have we consistently named things after a president who was still in office,” said Jeffrey Engel, the David Gergen Director of the Center for Presidential History at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. “One might even extend that to say a president who is still alive. Those kind of memorializations are supposed to be just that — memorials to the passing hero.”
White House spokeswoman Liz Huston said the TrumpRx website linked to the president's deals to lower the price of some prescription drugs, along with “overdue upgrades of national landmarks, lasting peace deals, and wealth-creation accounts for children are historic initiatives that would not have been possible without President Trump’s bold leadership.”
"The Administration’s focus isn’t on smart branding, but delivering on President Trump’s goal of Making America Great Again," Huston said.
The White House pointed out that the nation's capital was named after President George Washington and the Hoover Dam was named after President Herbert Hoover while each was serving as president.
For Trump, it’s a continuation of the way he first etched his place onto the American consciousness, becoming famous as a real estate developer who affixed his name in big gold letters on luxury buildings and hotels, a casino and assorted products like neckties, wine and steaks.
As he ran for president in 2024, the candidate rolled out Trump-branded business ventures for watches, fragrances, Bibles and sneakers — including golden high tops priced at $799. After taking office again last year, Trump's businesses launched a Trump Mobile phone company, with plans to unveil a gold-colored smartphone and a cryptocurrency memecoin named $TRUMP.
That’s not to be confused with plans for a physical, government-issued Trump coin that U.S. Treasurer Brandon Beach said the U.S. Mint is planning.
Trump has also reportedly told the owners of Washington’s NFL team that he would like his name on the Commanders’ new stadium. The team’s ownership group, which has the naming rights, has not commented on the idea. But a White House spokeswoman in November called the proposed name “beautiful” and said Trump made the rebuilding of the stadium possible.
The addition of Trump’s name to the Kennedy Center in December so outraged independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont that he introduced legislation this week to ban the naming or renaming of any federal building or land after a sitting president — a ban that would retroactively apply to the Kennedy Center and Institute of Peace.
“I think he is a narcissist who likes to see his name up there. If he owns a hotel, that’s his business,” Sanders said in an interview. “But he doesn’t own federal buildings.”
Sanders likened Trump's penchant for putting his name on government buildings and more to the actions of authoritarian leaders throughout history.
“If the American people want to name buildings after a president who is deceased, that’s fine. That’s what we do,” Sanders said. “But to use federal buildings to enhance your own position very much sounds like the ‘Great Leader’ mentality of North Korea, and that is not something that I think the American people want.”
Although some of the naming has been suggested by others, the president has made clear he’s pleased with the tributes.
Three months after the announcement of the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity, a name the White House says was proposed by Armenian officials, the president gushed about it at a White House dinner.
“It’s such a beautiful thing, they named it after me. I really appreciate it. It’s actually a big deal,” he told a group of Central Asian leaders.
Engel, the presidential historian, said the practice can send a signal to people "that the easiest way to get access and favor from the president is to play to his ego and give him something or name something after him.”
Some of the proposals for honoring Trump include legislation in Congress from New York Republican Rep. Claudia Tenney that would designate June 14 as “Trump’s Birthday and Flag Day," placing the president with the likes of Martin Luther King Jr., George Washington and Jesus Christ, whose birthdays are recognized as national holidays.
Florida Republican Rep. Greg Steube has introduced legislation that calls for the Washington-area rapid transit system, known as the Metro, to be renamed the “Trump Train.” North Carolina Republican Rep. Addison McDowell has introduced legislation to rename Washington Dulles International Airport as Donald J. Trump International Airport.
McDowell said it makes sense to give Dulles a new name since Trump has already announced plans to revamp the airport, which currently is a tribute to former Secretary of State John Foster Dulles.
The congressman said he wanted to honor Trump because he feels the president has been a champion for combating the scourge of fentanyl, a personal issue for McDowell after his brother’s overdose death. But he also cited Trump’s efforts to strike peace deals all over the world and called him “one of the most consequential presidents ever.”
“I think that’s somebody that deserves to be honored, whether they’re still the president or whether they’re not," he said.
More efforts are underway in Florida, Trump’s adopted home.
Republican state lawmaker Meg Weinberger said she is working on an effort to rename Palm Beach International Airport as Donald J. Trump International Airport, a potential point of confusion with the Dulles effort.
The road that the president will see christened Friday is not the first Florida asphalt to herald Trump upon his return to the White House.
In the south Florida city of Hialeah, officials in December 2024 renamed a street there as President Donald J. Trump Avenue.
Trump, speaking at a Miami business conference the next month, called it a “great honor” and said he loved the mayor for it.
“Anybody that names a boulevard after me, I like,” he said.
He added a few moments later: “A lot of people come back from Hialeah, they say, ‘They just named a road after you.' I say, ‘That’s OK.’ It’s a beginning, right? It’s a start.”
FILE - A sign for the Rose Garden is seen near the Presidential Walk of Fame on the Colonnade at the White House, Jan. 13, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, File)
FILE - President Donald Trump speaks with reporters as a flag pole is installed on the South Lawn of the White House, June 18, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)
FILE - Workers add President Donald Trump's name to the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts, after a Trump-appointed board voted to rename the institution, in Washington, Dec. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
FILE - A poster showing the Trump Gold Card is seen as President Donald Trump signs executive orders in the Oval Office of the White House, Sept. 19, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, file)
