The defending champions of the U 17 Fifa women world cup, Spain was the better team on Wednesday as they beat Colombia by 1-0 in their opener at the DY Patil stadium in Mumbai.

The U 20 Spanish women team recently won their edition of the world cup too so this begs the question as to what led to the enhancement in women’s football in Spain.

Kenio Gonzalo, the coach of the current U 17 Spanish team in India gave some insights into the matter. The big reason for Spain becoming a powerhouse in this area has been scouting which in other terms is the skill of tapping into the untapped talent of the youth at a very early age. These players need game time too so in order to avail them with the game time, the Spanish football federation has a system in place which allows these players to be the the part of Spanish club’s “B” teams.

Crowd attendance for women’s football has increased by leaps and bounds. More than 90k people turned up for the quarter final and semi final of the women’s UEFA championship last year. Straight from the books of feminism following the USA model, the Spanish federation is working on the principle of “equal pay” where they have announced that female players will receive equal pay as their male counterparts while representing the country.