With the Magdalena festivities on the horizon, Castell\u00f3 hosted Spain\u2019s opening qualifier for the 2027 World Cup in Brazil at SkyFi Castalia. The first step towards defending the title returned elite football to a ground that last month staged the Supercopa de Espa\u00f1a.<\/p>\n
From 15:00, Teodoro Izquierdo square became the pre-match focal point, with music, activities and a family feel painting the nearby streets red. According to El Peri\u00f3dico Mediterr\u00e1neo, it was not an easy night for a sell-out, with a weekday 19:00 kick-off and raw temperatures.<\/p>\n
Even so, large numbers filled various sections of SkyFi Castalia. The occasion had a youth feel, with dozens of children waving homemade signs asking for shirts from Alexia Putellas<\/a>, Irene Paredes<\/a>, Vicky L\u00f3pez<\/a> and Claudia Pina.<\/p>\n Fans travelled from Alzira, Elche and across Castell\u00f3n province, and city teams such as Fustecma Nou B\u00e0squet Femen\u00ed were represented. Spain shirts dominated, with some Barcelona colours, scarves and flags urging Sonia Berm\u00fadez\u2019s side towards a crucial start to qualifying.<\/p>\n \u201cEspa\u00f1a, Espa\u00f1a\u201d rang out at intervals, and half-time brought one of the night\u2019s standout moments, phone torches illuminating Castalia in time with the music.<\/p>\n Spanish football federation president Rafael Louz\u00e1n attended with federation representatives and Iceland\u2019s ambassador in Spain, Kristj\u00e1n Andri Stef\u00e1nsson. Mayor Bego\u00f1a Carrasco was also present, alongside festival queens Clara Sanz and Ana Col\u00f3n, and at the federation\u2019s official lunch she called it a source of pride to host and stressed the city\u2019s ongoing push to promote women\u2019s sport.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With the Magdalena festivities on the horizon, Castell\u00f3 hosted Spain\u2019s opening qualifier for the 2027 World Cup in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":152289,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":["post-152288","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152288","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152288"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152288\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/152289"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}