During the buildup to the 2025 Euro Flag 2025, IFAF has posed three questions to the head coaches of the men’s and women’s teams ranked in the Top Six in the world, who are about to compete for continental glory.
Spain women’s head coach Daniel Castañón has been involved with flag football for about 25 years, starting out as one of the founders of his hometown club, the Gijón Mariners. He has won three national championships—one as a player and two as head coach of the women’s team.
In 2014, he was honored with the responsibility of becoming the very first head coach of Spain’s women’s national flag football team. Since then, they have built the program from scratch—going from having no world ranking to currently being recognized as the seventh-best team in the world. The journey has brought Spain a European bronze medal in 2017, an historic European gold in Israel in 2019, silver in Ireland in 2023, and a sixth-place finish at the World Championship in Finland in 2024.
What are the goals for your team in this tournament?
Our main goal is to make it to next year’s World Championships. Once we get there, we’ll fight for a medal to keep us among Europe’s top three for another year.
What will be the strengths of your team?
The main strength of our team is that we have a very versatile group of players who can play in multiple positions, which gives our offense many options and provides great flexibility on defense. We also have a good mix of experience and youth. Along with a core of players who have already won gold and silver at the European Championship (such as WRs Olga Sotillo and Mar Hernández, C Violeta Wiksten, LB Cristina Gómez, and QB Mónica Rafecas), new young talents have joined, like Laura Hernández and Atxa Delgado, who were European U17 champions last year.
What do you think of the group you have been drawn into?
It’s a group with a bit of everything. Teams with less international experience like Poland, debutants like Norway, more experienced ones like Sweden, and one of the favorites, the host team France. We have to be ready and very focused from day one because each of them is a different challenge. It’s always tough to face teams you don’t know much about, and at the same time those you’ve played against many times know you better. It’s definitely going to be fun.
