Spain Is Untouchable When Alexia Is Feeling It

The peerless superiority of the Spain women's national soccer team is primarily a matter of technique. There's no national team in the world that can put so many exquisite technical players on the field at the same time. When the Spaniards have the ball—and they always have the ball—the effect of even just watching them cut capers around the pitch with astonishing touches that zip the ball through unseen gaps is something like seeing 10 sleight-of-hand experts execute an elaborate card trick, where the answer to "Do you know where the ball is now?" is always "I didn't see anything, but I bet it's in the back of the net."

Along with the team's technical resplendence, Spain also dominates games by dominating opponents' minds. The impact of all that technique and the already imposing legacies of the players who wield it manifests not only on the scoreboard but also in the psychological realm. La Roja wants to, even needs to, break the opposition's spirit, stringing together long possessions and unrelenting waves of fearsome attacks and rabid counter-pressures and goal after goal after goal until the other team is tired, distressed, and demoralized, at which point they more or less concede defeat. It's at that very point of surrender that Spain is at its ruthless best. And nobody has more to do with bringing teams to that breaking point than Alexia Putellas.

Monday's Euro 2025 group-stage match between Spain and Belgium was a good example of all of this. The lopsided final score, a 6–2 Spain win, both is and isn't an accurate reflection of the game's trajectory. The clash wasn't exactly competitive, since Spain could do pretty much exactly what it wanted, when it wanted, from the first minute to the last. The Belgians did however manage to keep within striking distance of the Spaniards for an entire hour, much of that time spent with the scoreline tied, which is an impressive feat considering the huge gap in quality between the two teams. As is sometimes the case with this team, and with the Barcelona club team that supplies the national team with most of its raw materials, it wasn't until Spain truly broke Belgium's spirit that it could really show itself in full splendor.

Belgium came into Monday's match with about as simple a gameplan as you can imagine: Sit extremely deep, defend with your life, and when you do manage to get the ball, immediately smash it up the pitch as hard and far as you can in hopes that one of the forwards can run onto it and start a one- or at most two-woman counter attack. But unsophisticated doesn't mean ineffective, and the strategy worked very well for most of the game. The Belgians were never going to seriously contest or even impede Spain's possessions, but the big clumps of bodies they formed in and around the penalty box did prevent Spain from coming up with too many clean looks on goal in the first half. And the hilariously basic Route-One attacks (I have a hard time remembering a comparably unabashed hoof-and-hope approach) were actually smart.

The most glaring flaw of this Spain team is its susceptibility to quick attacks into big spaces. The Spaniards send so many players high when in possession, and go so all-out when pressing to recover the ball after losing it, that they are always one good pass over the top and a corresponding run in behind from gifting the opponent a one-on-one with the goalkeeper. Though the Red Flames were only able to connect a few hoofs with hopeful runs, even the failed attempts proved how vulnerable the Spaniards' exposed back line was to the tactic. Through Mariam Toloba's routinely threatening runs, Hannah Eurlings's bursts into space, and the 6-foot-1 Justine Van Haevermaet's towering frame, it was no fluke that Belgium found the two goals and, just as importantly, the encouragement to resist Spain's attempts to break them.

But when Alexia is on her game the way she was on Monday, resistance is almost always futile. After what qualifies for her as something of a slow start to the game, Alexia was the one who finally broke apart one of those stubborn Belgium clumps in the 22nd minute, capping a gorgeous passing sequence (I LOVE both the Patri pass and the Vicky López one in the lead-up) with the kind of finish that elicits downright indecent guttural noises in response. Thirty minutes later—during which time a Haevermaet header, an Irene Paredes header, and a Eurlings strike off of a successful hoof-and-hoper had the score even at two goals apiece—a velvety pass from Alexia set Esther González up for Spain's third go-ahead goal of the day.

That strike spelled the beginning of the end for Belgium. Aitana Bonmatí's entrance into the game at halftime had already tilted the field even more definitively in Spain's direction, helping Spain more consistently find spaces in the most dangerous central areas of the attacking third. Belgium may have still had a puncher's chance after the Esther goal, but the set-piece scramble that ended with Mariona Caldentey popping in Spain's fourth goal right around the hour mark was the fatal blow. Down two goals, exhausted after chasing shadows for 60 minutes straight, helpless in the face of Aitana's command and Alexia's genius, Belgium was finally, fully demoralized and no longer seemed capable or even interested in keeping up what had been an admirable fight. Unsurprisingly, that's when Spain really got to work.

It really is something when the kind of from-way-downtown banger Clàudia Pina scored (off an Alexia assist) in the 81st minute isn't hands-down the most impressive technical marvel of a match. I may be biased in favor of the technique, but nevertheless I'd still give the slight edge there to Alexia's first trivela goal as the game's most brilliant moment—and I could even make the case for the follow-up trivela she scored in the 86th minute that gave Spain the gaudy winning margin its second-half performance had earned. Alexia had played a key role in getting Spain in position to at last break Belgium's spirit with Mariona's goal, and her influence was even more evident in the overwhelming display of domination after. The fluidity of Spain's movements and combinations, the inventiveness of their thinking, and the assuredness of their every action all bore Alexia's fingerprints.

It goes back to the psychological side, I think. Spain's big weakness is, again, defensive. They best cover for that flaw by attacking—by keeping possession and scoring goals, of course, but also by attacking the opposition's will, adding a psychological weight to the heavy legs that don't need much convincing in order to prioritize rest over the arduous, often thankless work of defending deep and counter attacking. Breaking the opponent's spirit also liberates the Spaniards themselves, who, as the last half-hour of the Belgium game demonstrated, play best when free to follow their flights of fancy, when the game becomes less about obligation and more about fun.

It was interesting along those lines that after the game both Paredes and Esther mentioned that they wished people wouldn't put so much pressure on Alexia, because when she's free and fearless there is no better player on the planet. I'm not sure there's any real way for the best player on the best team in a competition they will be expected to win can play totally free of outside pressure, but after seeing how well she has done both on Monday and in last Thursday's 5–0 win over Portugal, it doesn't seem like Alexia will have much trouble breaking the rest of Europe's spirit over the course of the next few weeks anyway.