From the supermarket to the European Championship: Cristina Martín-Prieto's story with the national team: "I come from the mud."

There are at least two images of Cristina Martín-Prieto (Seville, 1993) that will remain in Spain 's memory from the Euros . The first, her leap to connect with a perfect header from a Salma Paralluelo cross that was the fifth goal against Portugal . The other, her Macarena dance before the match against Belgium on the turf of the Thun stadium, which UEFA made viral. Spain's tallest forward, a pure number 9 who always relied on instinct in Raúl González 's penalty area, is the perpetual smile of this team.

"My brother says I'm Pepe Reina , because saying Joaquín is a Bético fan..." she jokes, a Sevilla fan at heart. At 32, she's living her best moment since Montse Tomé called her for the first time in November. Now she's preparing for the match against Germany , where Esther González , the striker she's known since she was a child because they played together in the youth teams and with the Andalusian national team, is already giving them "information" about goalkeeper Ann-Katrin Berger , with whom she plays at Gotham.

Martín-Prieto is trying to be ready for when it's her turn to play, because she's living a dream in Switzerland . "It's a privilege to be here. To this day, I still pinch myself because I can't believe it," she confesses. Her story is pure self-improvement. "I came from the mud, as they say, and I start to imagine if I had taken on this when I was four years younger..." she says. "This" isn't the national team or the European Championship, it's professional football: "I see teammates like Vicky López , at 18, enjoying and making a living from football, and I'm glad, because it's amazing." Her path has had more twists and turns.

"He drew strength from where he had none."

In 2017, she left to play for Granadilla Tenerife , where football wasn't enough to support her on the island. She was offered three jobs: in a supermarket, at the airport, or as a hotel waitress. She chose the supermarket, but it was tough. "None of them were very compatible for an athlete. To work and play, I found strength where I didn't have any," she confesses. When the agreement between the F League and the players was signed, ensuring that they all earned the minimum wage, she threw herself into football. "It wasn't enough to survive, but it was something," she says, proud of her story, "which has been beautiful." "I've gone from working in a supermarket to playing and scoring in a European Championship. Welcome," she insists with a smile that infects anyone who looks at her.

Her love of football comes from her mother's side. She started playing with her brothers on mixed teams—"I even played on the same team with my youngest," she recalls—and already stood out for her height: 1.73 meters tall and built for a tough game in the box. "We ate a lot of petit-suisse for breakfast," she jokes. From a Sevilla family, "although there are some flaws from the others," she says sarcastically, her father didn't like football at all. "When I started playing, he tried to find out what an offside was. Now he even says he doesn't like VAR and argues about it," says the player, who today counts him as her biggest fan. "We saw the squad together and it was very special to see each other face to face. The debut shirt and the first goal went to him," she reveals. For now, they haven't been able to travel to Switzerland. They will if they reach the final, and she will work hard for that. The entire locker room is committed to beating Germany.

Stuck to Aitana

She's fit in perfectly with the group, despite being one of the last. First, because of her age and maturity, "but also because I'm not ashamed," she admits. One of her supporters has been Aitana Bonmatí , whom she looked after closely after her meningitis. "We knew each other from the League and had mutual respect. At the October training camp, she approached me and paved the way for me; she offered her hand. Now it's been a tough call that she got [meningitis], and the least I could do was be by her side to support her through it all," she says.

Now that the scare is over, football is opening up, and Martín-Prieto is looking to crown a dream season. In her first year at Benfica , she was voted the league's best player. "I thought I'd be a little less competitive and that I'd relax, but in the end, I had to fight," she joked again. Furthermore, this player, who defines herself as "attuned to the penalty area," has broken through, for example, with headed goals like the one she scored against Portugal: "Sometimes I lacked power, because I wasted it jumping, or the other way around. I won't say it anymore, that's my handicap." What she hopes is to be able to show it again, if necessary, against the Germans.