{"id":236342,"date":"2025-07-04T03:00:13","date_gmt":"2025-07-04T03:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/236342\/"},"modified":"2025-07-04T03:00:13","modified_gmt":"2025-07-04T03:00:13","slug":"spains-new-star-vicky-lopez-announces-her-presence-at-euro-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/236342\/","title":{"rendered":"Spain’s New Star, Vicky L\u00f3pez, Announces Her Presence at Euro 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

From the country that claimed the last four Ballon d\u2019Or awards, Spain<\/a> has a new star.<\/p>\n

The 18-year-old Vicky L\u00f3pez<\/a> announced her arrival on the big stage Thursday by helping Spain to an opening 5-0<\/a> rout of Portugal<\/a> at the Women\u2019s European Championship<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It was Spain\u2019s biggest win at the tournament, eclipsing the 4-1 win over Finland<\/a> at Euro 2022.<\/p>\n

L\u00f3pez added the second goal just minutes after Esther Gonz\u00e1lez<\/a> scored the first, and she proved a constant threat for the beleaguered Portuguese defense, setting up chances for Alexia Putellas<\/a> and playing a decisive role before Gonz\u00e1lez\u2019 second goal.<\/p>\n

Her performance earned praise from Spain coach Montse Tom\u00e9, even if she understandably tried to reign in the burgeoning expectations.<\/p>\n

“She\u2019s a young player with whom we have to be patient,” Tom\u00e9 said. “We\u2019ve been working with her for a year, almost two years now. We have a lot of faith in her talent, and she\u2019s at a point where we\u2019ve been able to give her minutes (of playing time) now. She responded well. She did the job she had to do very well.”<\/p>\n

Tom\u00e9 said L\u00f3pez still had plenty of time to develop. “We have to keep helping her improve. She\u2019s very young, and we\u2019re here to help her continue enjoying what she does,” the Spain coach said.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s clear that Tom\u00e9\u2019s faith is paying off for the player.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“When I play with confidence, I play better,” L\u00f3pez told media in the mixed zone after Thursday’s match. “When you play without confidence, it\u2019s bad. Ultimately I\u2019m grateful for the trust that I\u2019m shown because I try to be myself on the field.”<\/p>\n

L\u00f3pez played till the 81st minute when she made way for Aitana Bonmat\u00ed<\/a>, who started on the bench after being hospitalized for viral meningitis last week<\/a>. Bonmat\u00ed won the last two Ballon d\u2019Or awards. Putellas won the previous two. All three players are teammates at Barcelona<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Spain vs. Portugal UEFA Women’s Euro 2025 Highlights | FOX Soccer \"Spain<\/a> <\/p>\n

At 18 days and 342 days old, L\u00f3pez became Spain\u2019s youngest player to appear at the European Championship. She\u2019d already set the record as the country\u2019s youngest player when she made her debut last year.<\/p>\n

L\u00f3pez became the youngest player to play in Spain\u2019s top women\u2019s league when she played for Madrid CFF aged 15. She joined Barcelona in 2022 and went on to break more records there because of her age, including becoming the club\u2019s youngest player, male or female, to appear in the Champions League<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“My family is the foundation of my entire life, and, of course, my father,” said L\u00f3pez, whose mother died when she was 11 years old, and who still looks to the sky after she scores.<\/p>\n

Though Bonmat\u00ed is likely to play a greater role in the next games, L\u00f3pez will get more opportunities to shine. She\u2019s already thinking of the team\u2019s goals.<\/p>\n

“We\u2019re hungry for more,” L\u00f3pez said. “I think if we keep going like this, playing as a team and having that luck in front of goal, we\u2019ll be able to play a very good European Championship.”<\/p>\n

Up next, Spain plays Belgium<\/a> on Monday (noon ET on FS1<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Reporting by The Associated Press.<\/p>\n

Want great stories delivered right to your inbox? Create or log in to your FOX Sports account, follow leagues, teams and players to receive a personalized newsletter daily<\/a>!<\/p>\n

FOLLOW Follow your favorites to personalize your FOX Sports experience \"UEFA UEFA Women’s EURO \"Spain\" Spain \"UEFA Get more from UEFA Women’s EURO Follow your favorites to get information about games, news and more <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From the country that claimed the last four Ballon d\u2019Or awards, Spain has a new star. The 18-year-old…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":236343,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5312],"tags":[2000,299,104],"class_list":{"0":"post-236342","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-spain","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-spain"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114792734682527203","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236342","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=236342"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236342\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/236343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=236342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=236342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=236342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}