Alexia Putellas put the world at her feet. And she caressed him as she caresses every ball she touches on a playing field. The captain of Barcelona and one of the Spanish team received multiple awards in recent times for her football development during the past year. The Catalan player, who led the Barça team to win the triple crown for the first time, won the UEFA award, the Ballon d’Or, the the best of FIFA, World Soccer, the Globe Soccer Awards and has just lifted the Super Cup.
In the portal The Players Tribune, Putellas wrote an article that goes through his childhood, his position on football and the prejudices that surround him, the pressure to play, the historical moments of Barcelona and how he sees his future.
“Since I was a girl, my goal was to be a Barça player. When I play for this club I feel like I’m representing my family, my history, my origins. When I was six years old, I remember watching the classic from atop a pool table. (…) I remember that I used to get very nervous even though I hardly knew what was happening. I just knew that it mattered to me,” Alexia says in the article.
The multi-award winning player added: “If at that moment they told me that one day I would set foot on that grass, I would have said ‘Pffft, it can’t be…Only men play here’. Last year, when I played there, I made a dream come true that I had since I was six years old. When you’re in the locker room or in the center circle – wow – you need to stop for a few moments to take it all in. It is a place that commands respect.”
“My family took me to Sabadell because one of them had a friend who played for the team. I was seven years old and the minimum age to play was eight, so my family had to cheat a bit so that I could sign. I remember that, after work, they took turns taking me to train on a half-hour trip,” says Putellas going back to her early years playing soccer. In addition, the soccer player returns to those streets that she used to walk with a ball at her feet: “I used to hear things like ‘There’s something about this girl…She’s special.’ But I never paid attention to it. She just wanted to play. Whenever she went and wherever she went, she always played. For example, if my parents went to the square to have a coffee, I would take the ball with me and trained the auction against the wall of the town hall”.
“When I returned to the club in 2012, we spent a few seasons without winning anything. We didn’t give the level. But Barça, instead of revising their bet, doubled it. Even when the results were not immediate, the club committed to the project. They knew that it takes time to achieve success”, points out the captain of the culé team recalling the history of the team.
For her, one of the key moments was the game they lost against Lyon in the Champions League final in 2019: “It seems strange to say after a loss but I felt at peace with myself. It was as if we had seen that ‘I mean, this is the level, right?’ The path was clear and we knew we had to get down to work.
Last year, Putellas and his team had their revenge, beating Chelsea in the final. “Perhaps because we already had the experience of having played a final before, everything was different. We had maximum confidence in our game plan, in each partner, in ourselves,” he says.
“Nobody raised an eyebrow when that girl said she wanted to be a footballer. I admit that I’ve been lucky to have the family I have and the friends I grew up with, but my experience should be that of any girl“reflects the soccer player who is soon to turn 28, in the article of the The Players Tribune.
The classic between Barcelona and Real Madrid that will be played on March 30 for the return of the Champions League at the Camp Nou sold all the tickets that were on sale (85 thousand tickets), setting a new record for Spanish women’s football . The footballer also made reference to this growth in the discipline: “Before, people could ask themselves if there was a demand for women’s football, but now supply has to be guaranteed. During the 20 years that I have been playing, the world has changed and will change even more. It will be brutal.“
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