by Paul Kennedy @pkedit, Jan 22, 2019

Huge strides since 2015.

NWSL connection.

Gap narrows.

Spain Roster:

The USA closes out its two-game European tour on Tuesday when it meets Spain for the first time in women's action at the Estadio Jose Rico Perez, home of Hercules, in Alicante.Spain's women's national team program officially dates back to the early 1980s, before the U.S. women's national team was even formed, but it was only recently that the Spanish federation started taking women's soccer seriously and clubs like Barcelona and Atletico Madrid have followed suit.Spain did not win a game in its first appearance in the Women's World Cup four years ago, but it has made huge strides since then.At the youth level, Spain won the 2018 Under-17 Women's World Cup and finished second to Japan at the 2018 Under-20 Women's World Cup. At the senior level, it won the 2017 Algarve Cup and 2018 Cyprus Cup, the two biggest European spring tournaments, and reached the quarterfinals at Euro 2017.Spain qualified for the 2019 Women's World Cup with eight wins in eight games, and with the USA's 3-1 loss to France on Saturday, its 15-game unbeaten streak is the longest active streak in the world.The majority of the Spanish team plays for Atletico Madrid and Barcelona, first and second in the Liga Iberdrola, but it has three foreign-based players:(Paris SG) and(Montpellier), who play in France, and, who recently signed with the NWSL's Seattle Reign.Jimenez was drafted out of the University of Alabama in 2018 but elected to stay in Tuscaloosa to finish up her degree in aerospace engineering, played for the WPSL champion Seattle Sounders Women in the summer and spent the fall in Sweden with Rosengard.(Spanish star, who will play for the Utah Royals in 2019, hasn't been called up to the national team since before Euro 2017 and doesn't expect to be called back for the World Cup.)Spain has a young team. At 27, midfielder, who played for the Western New York Flash in 2014. was the oldest player in Spain's starting lineup when it tied Belgium, 1-1, in a friendly on Thursday. It was missing its biggest star, 20-year-old Barcelona midfielder, who is injured.But for all the progress being made in Spanish women's soccer -- Barcelona and Atletico Madrid have attracted some of the top foreign stars in women's soccer -- Spain head coachsays a lot of work remains to be done for Spain to challenge the United States, noting his country has only 40,000 registered women's players, a fraction of the U.S. pool of talent."We only need time," he said at Monday's press conference. "The distance is getting smaller, but there is a lot of work in that race to be among the best."Lola Gallardo (Atletico Madrid), Sandra Panos (Barcelona), Sun Quiñones (Real Sociedad).Ivana Andres (Levante), Marta Carro (Valencia Feminas), Celia Jimenez (Seattle Reign), Mapi Leon (Barcelona), Leila Ouahabi (Barcelona), Andrea Pereira (Barcelona), Irene Paredes (Paris SG, France), Marta Torrejon (Barcelona).Aitana Bonmati (Barcelona), Marta Corredera (Levante), Vicky Losada (Barcelona), Silvia Meseguer (Atletico Madrid), Andrea Sanchez Falcon (Atletico Madrid), Amanda Sampedro (Atletico Madrid), Ángela Sosa (Atletico Madrid), Virginia Torrecilla (Montpellier, France).: Mariona Caldentey (Barcelona), Lucia Garcia (Athletic Club), Nahikari Garcia (Real Sociedad), Jenni Hermoso (Atletico Madrid), Alexia Putellas (Barcelona), Alba Redondo (Fundacion Albacete).