Episode 12: The Match

Season 1, Episode 12

## Synopsis

The future of the girls is at stake in a final crucial match against the Olympic, which can make them go up to the OK League or make them lose the team forever. Gina can't take it anymore and asks Lorena for absolute sincerity, while Flor is debating whether to return to Buenos Aires or stay in the village for good. Anna and Germán are secretly carrying out what happened.

## Plot

Gina has a dream in which Lore kisses Flor in front of her and then kisses her herself. Some time later, Flor messages Lorena to convince her to confess to Gina what happened between them. Meanwhile, Òscar is mad at Lorena for her behavior since their father died, and criticizes her for not supporting her mother enough to help her get through the mourning. After speaking with Òscar, Lore tells her mother that for the moment she is not going to see the world, that she will leave in a while.

Santi offers Terrats to discuss with Enric in order to make a deal if he wins the club presidency. While they are talking about it, they receive an unexpected visitor.

The girls have the most important match of the league, against the Olympic, in which the survival of their team is at stake: if they win they go up to the OKlliga but if they lose, Enric eliminates the girls' team. Emma isn't comfortable racing against her old teammates and tries to avoid playing, but Germán manages to convince her. The first few minutes are gold for Minerva's, but the game is switched against them, yet afterwards they draw and go into extra time. When they get to the penalty shootout, the Olympic ends up winning, despite Anna's support and her encouraging messages. Lore is down because she feels guilty about the defeat, but her friends hug her to make her understand that their friendship is more important than hockey.

Emma is facing the girls on her team because one of them accuses her of having sabotaged them during the whole match and tells her "nobody loves you, they're better off without you". Anna watches to console her as she bursts into tears in anger and explodes screaming that even her biological family didn't want her, which is why they threw her in a dumpster.

After the game, Berta, Flor and Raquel, are going to watch Enric to beg her not to eliminate the team, because hockey says Raquel, "it's the best thing we have, all our lives". But Enric is not willing to listen to their requests because "a deal is a deal".
The girls meet in the park, they joke about signing up for some other sport, but it's unanimous that they prefer hockey and that they want to be together. As they leave, Gina grabs Flor and asks her about her relationship with Lorena, and she reveals the truth. Gina is angry because Lore "always does her own thing and that if she wants to, she can go to China".

Flor's mother tells her that they can move back to Argentina, expecting her to be excited, but Flor, who is already an adult and feels independent, prefers to stay in Catalonia.

She goes to visit her mother, who is in a psychiatric hospital because of schizophrenia, and there Olga announces that she is being discharged and is returning home.
Emma is welcomed home with videos about her childhood and she realizes that she already has a family that really loves her as she is and would never abandon her.
When Enric returns to his office, the girls have left their T-shirts on display and a piece of paper with red letters saying "WE JUST WANTED TO PLAY" Enric tucks in the T-shirts and throws the paper away.

## TV3's explanation

Minerva's girls are playing their future in one last crucial match against the Olympic girls, which could either get them into the OKLliga or cause them to lose the team forever. One of the most exciting episodes of the season that has left us glued to the screen. Moreover, Gina can't take it anymore and asks Lorena for absolute honesty, while Flor is debating whether to return to Buenos Aires or stay in the village for good. Let's go over the main plots of chapter 12 of The hockey girls: The Match. Warning, there are spoilers!

**How does Minerva's greatest match end?**

The women's team is playing for its existence. The stands are full for this important match and, in the dressing room, Anna encourages her team: "Go out and win as if you didn't care about losing. And most importantly, remember that we are a team! We skate together, we sweat together, we win together!

Outside, Emma doesn't want to play, and tells Germán, her coach, that she doesn't want to play. "You're the one who knows Minerva's girls best. Off the field they may be your friends, but here they are your rivals."

Game on. Lore and Flor together are lethal and score the first goal. It seems that Minerva is superior to the Olympic. Within the rival team, nerves are running high, and one of the players from the Olympics scolds Emma, who doesn't feel part of the team.

The comeback comes, and the girls in blue score two goals almost in a row in the face of Minerva's disbelief. Then the Olympic team begins to play dirty. The mood heats up and the crowd scolds the referee. Flor is also getting excited and decides to play hard. But she misses a good opportunity for wanting to do it alone and not counting on Berta. End of the first part.

Time to discuss in the changing room and for an epic speech by Anna, who has exactly the right word for each of them: "I believe in the team we have built. Do you believe? (...) If we've come this far it's been because of your desire to play and fight every day. Laila, you have acquired a brilliant technique and being different makes you unique. Berta, you are still the strong soul of this team. No one bends you. Raquel, how many goals have you stopped so we can be here talking about this. Lorena, you've had to suffer, you've had some tough times, but... how you've gotten up and how you've all been by her side! You've returned with infinite courage. Gina, it took a bit but I think that today you can say that this is as important for you as it is for them. Flor, don't lose sight of what you're already doing. You are a beast. But only together you add up. The girls at the Olympic play really well. But you have two things that they don't have: passion and a reason to get ahead.

Returning from the break, Anna's words take effect and Berta scores a goal, with a ball from Flor. Two to two. But Emma doesn't take long to score again with a direct foul. The Olympic team is winning (2-3), and there are still minutes left to play. Minerva girls are nervous, but Lore takes advantage of a counterattack to score and, excited, dedicates the goal to her father, Pela. The score is tied at three. One last dangerous move by the Olympic team before the end of the second half, but Raquel makes an anthological stop and the game ends 3-3. We must go into extra time! People in the stands can't believe the game is so exciting.

"Where are we going? To win!!!" In extra time, the first move leads to the opponent's goal. 4-3! "We've got it!", calls her captain, while Minerva reorganizes. Emma knows them perfectly and knows that there will be dangerous moves and that the protagonists of them will be Lorena and Flor, but her captain doesn't listen to her. The duo Lorena and Flor ends up winning and the Argentinean girl scores the goal of the tie at 4.

Penalties. It' s insane. What a match! It takes 5 penalty goals to save the team and get into OKLliga.] The round begins and Raquel stops the first shot. Berta also fails. The Olympic scores. Gina fails again, and the Olympic also fails. Raquel is ecstatic about all the stops she's made. Laila, despite her fears, gets the ball into the net. The Olympic captain looks at Raquel relentlessly and puts the score at 1-2. Time for Flor, decision and strength, and a goal inside the net. Emma kicks without thinking twice and scores (2-3). The girls have struggled a lot to get here. All the pressure is on the last one to take the penalty: Lorena. Lorena Sanchez's point is essential to keep going. Look at the sky before you aim for the goal and then...

**Will Lorena go on a world tour?**

It seems that Lorena's idea of going around the world has not survived the episode. Her brother Òscar tells her that she is selfish and that if she sells the farmhouse they will lose the only thing they have left of their father. These words end up shocking her and she rules out going away from her family: "I think I'll stay for now. I want to stay here with you. I don't want to leave you alone, Mom." Finally, will she give up her dream?

**Will Flor go back to Buenos Aires?**

Apparently not. And so she has let her mother know: "I don't want to go back to Buenos Aires. Here's my team. I have friends now, real friends." Does Lorena have anything to do with her decision? "I'm already 18, I can make my life here, stay alone. This is my place."

**The emotional bomb about Emma's origin.**

"They found me on the street. Laila, inside a dumpster." This phrase still resonates inside our heads as one of the harshest in the series. Emma suffers an unexpected twist in her life, when she discovers that she was abandoned as a child and throughout the 12th episode she has a hard time with this time bomb inside her.

At the end of the match, the captain of the Olympic Games teases Emma, criticising the farewell hug she has given to Laila. "You're pathetic Ricou. You'd rather hug the others than the ones on your own team. I'm sure they're better off without you." Emma loses her way and tries to attack the captain. Anna grabs her on the fly: "Breathe. Don't screw it up, please." "I can't, I can't," she repeats. She cries heartbroken. "Would you want someone like me on the team, screaming and screwing up all the time? When I was born it was already clear what a shitty person I was." Tears stream down her cheeks as she breaks down in pain.

**Anna:** *This is not true*.

**Emma** (completely out of her mind): *Oh no??? Well, why did my parents throw me in a dumpster? Do you know? Well, I don't either.*

One of the rawest and saddest scenes in the whole series. Emma needs to feel all the love in the world after imagining that her biological parents wanted her dead. But her adoptive family, which is her real family, is willing to give her that. What a beautiful moment to end the episode!

"What I'll never forget is the first time you held my finger in your hand. The first moment I held you in my arms. You held it so tightly that I thought, "That's my daughter!"

And next Monday, the last episode of "The hockey girls": what will happen to Minerva's female team?