Spain goalkeeper Cata Coll’s sudden elevation to FIFA Women’s World Cup final starter

FIFA Women’s World Cup final: Spain v England Where: Stadium Australia, Sydney When: Sunday 10pm Coverage: Live on Sky Sport 1, Prime, Stuff (coverage starts at 9pm), live updates on Stuff

Spain goalkeeper Cata Coll had never played a senior international match for her country until two weeks ago.

Now, after having a lead hand in helping Spain reach the final of FIFA Women’s World Cup for the first time, the 22-year-old looks set to start in the biggest game in the team’s history.

It will complete a rapid rise for a player who was not expected to even make Spain’s 23-strong squad, but now finds herself shouldering one of the most important jobs: Protecting Spain’s goal in a World Cup final against England.

“We have three excellent goalkeepers of a very high level and it’s something the Spanish team was hoping to have,” Spain coach Jorge Vilda said after putting his trust in the former age-group standout.

“We analysed in detail the performances of Cata during our training sessions and she won the position on her own merit.”

Coll has long been touted as Spain’s future No 1.

She won the golden glove award when Spain won the Under-17 Women’s World Cup in Uruguay in 2018 – the year New Zealand finished third – and is currently on the books of UEFA Champions League winners Barcelona.

But she was only Barcelona’s back-up during the run through to the Champions League final and missed most of the season after suffering a serious knee injury last year that kept her sidelined for 12 months.

Barcelona’s first-choice shotstopper Sandra Paños is widely-considered Spain’s best goalkeeper.

She started every game for Spain at the 2019 World Cup as well as during last year’s European Championships, including their 2-1 extra-time defeat to England in the quarterfinals.

However, the 55-cap veteran was one of 15 leading players who withdrew from the national team in the wake of the team’s early Euros exit due to a dispute with the Royal Spanish Football Federation and coach Vilda.

Of those 15, only Aitana Bonmatí, Mariona Caldentey and Ona Battle have returned.

Paños was reportedly open to rejoining the squad, but Vilda decided to make do without her.

Real Madrid’s Misa Rodríguez and rising stars Coll and Enith Salón were chosen as the three goalkeepers ahead of the World Cup.

As the most experienced of the trio, Rodríguez, 24, began the tournament as Spain’s No 1.

She kept clean sheets in big wins over Costa Rica and Zambia and held onto her spot for the final group C match against Japan, which is where her run ended.

Spain were badly exposed on the counter-attack and suffered a heavy 4-0 defeat which cost them top spot in the group.

Although Rodríguez was hardly to blame for the four goals Spain conceded, Vilda swung the axe and she was one of a handful of players dropped for the round of 16 clash with Switzerland.

In her place came Coll, who had never played for Spain before.

Her debut could not have got off to a worse start when defender Laia Codina badly overhit a pass back to her goalkeeper and scored a long-range own goal.

One of Coll’s first actions was to pick the ball out of her own net.

But Spain recovered from the early mistake and went on to smash Switzerland 5-1 and register their first win in the knockout stages of a World Cup.

Since changing their goalkeeper, Spain have won every game.

They followed up the Swiss rout by beating Netherlands and Sweden by identical 2-1 scorelines to reach the final.

Despite her lack of senior international experience, Coll has looked at home on the sport’s biggest stage.

She confidently punched away corner-kick deliveries against set-piece specialists Sweden to justify her coach’s mid-tournament switch.

“Cata has played very little this season because she was recovering from an injury, but she has experience at the international level [for age group teams] and has excellent character to compete in any situation,” Vilda added.

Starting opposite Coll in England’s goal on Sunday night will be Mary Earps – FIFA’s goalkeeper of the year last year.