KAISERSLAUTERN, Germany (AP) \u2014 Spain escaped Germany with a scoreless draw in the first leg of their Women\u2019s Nations League final on Friday.<\/p>\n
The title will be decided in Madrid on Tuesday at the home stadium of Atletico Madrid.<\/p>\n
Germany dominated the first half in Kaiserslautern as world champion Spain was unrecognizable.<\/p>\n
Normally masters of possession, the Spaniards continually lost the ball under Germany\u2019s pressure. Three-time Ballon d\u2019Or winner Aitana Bonmat\u00ed was missing in action as Spain hunkered down in its area.<\/p>\n
Only Cata Coll\u2019s saves kept Germany at bay. The Barcelona goalkeeper deflected shots by Franziska Kett and Klara B\u00fchl and defender Irene Paredes cleared a Jule Brand\u2019s goal-bound strike in quick succession around the half-hour mark when the hosts were at their best.<\/p>\n
Spain improved in the second half but Sara Berm\u00fadez\u2019s side was still lucky to not fall behind in its bid to defend its Nations League title.<\/p>\n
Alexia Putellas curled a shot just by the post then Esther Gonz\u00e1lez volleyed a cross by Mariano Caldentey off the woodwork in the 53rd.<\/p>\n
But Germany remained dangerous as the game became an exchange of blows with neither midfield able to control the pace. B\u00fchl sent a low shot off the bottom of the post in the 70th and a Brand cross clipped the bar moments later.<\/p>\n
Spain\u2019s first ever victory over Germany came at the 2025 European Championship semifinals where Bonmat\u00ed scored in extra time.<\/p>\n
Spain has reached the finals of the last four major tournaments. It beat England in the 2023 Women\u2019s World Cup and bettered France in the 2024 Women\u2019s Nations League. It fell to England on penalties in the Euros 2025 final.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
AP soccer: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/soccer<\/p>\n
The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"KAISERSLAUTERN, Germany (AP) \u2014 Spain escaped Germany with a scoreless draw in the first leg of their Women\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":313090,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,561,82],"class_list":["post-313089","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313089","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=313089"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313089\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/313090"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=313089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=313089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=313089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}