Mayra Ramírez: the merits that led her to be nominated for the Women’s Ballon d’Or

Colombian women’s football yesterday marked another great milestone in its short history: Chelsea striker Mayra Ramírez was nominated for the Ballon d’Or, the award given by France Football magazine, which revealed on Wednesday the list of 30 candidates for the award, whose winner will be announced on October 28.

Only three South Americans appear on the list: apart from Mayra, there are the Brazilians Tarciane Lima (Houston Dash) and Gabi Portilho (Corinthians). All this, in a year in which the women’s football tournament of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games played a leading role. It should be noted that the period taken into account by the organizers runs from August 1, 2023 to July 31, 2024.

(Read also: Luis Díaz, ready for the qualifying matches: ‘I hope to show in the National Team what I do for my club’)

This was Mayra Ramírez’s great season

Ramírez, born in Sibaté 25 years ago, has had a very good season. She made the jump from Levante to Chelsea in January this year for 450,000 euros, which at the time was the highest figure paid for a transfer in women’s football in the world.

That record was broken in February this year, when Zambian Racheal Kundananji moved from Madrid CFF to Bay City in the United States for 750,000 euros.

In the first half of the season, Mayra shone with Levante: she scored six goals in seven league games and also played an important role in the Women’s Champions League and the Queen’s Cup.

After arriving in England, the Colombian continued to show an upward trend. She scored three goals in seven games to help Chelsea win the English league, in which they tied on points with Manchester City and surpassed them on goal difference. Mayra scored twice in the last matchday for the 0-6 victory against Manchester United.

With her participation, Chelsea also reached the semi-finals of the Women’s Champions League, in which the English team came very close to reaching the final: they had beaten Barcelona 0-1 in the first leg of the semi-final and then lost at home 0-2 to say goodbye to their chances of winning the title.

Mayra was also important for the Colombian national team, which achieved its best Olympic performance in Paris, reaching the quarter-finals. She even scored a goal that gave hope of making it to the semi-finals against world champions Spain. They were unable to maintain a 2-0 lead and were eliminated on penalty kicks.

According to the figures revealed by France Football in the nomination for the Ballon d’Or, Mayra played 33 games this season, in which she scored 13 goals and provided four assists.

She is not the first Colombian to be nominated for this award, which the French publication has been awarding alone since 2018. Last year, the young Linda Caicedo, who had just joined Real Madrid, was already on the list. She finished ninth in the voting.

It is worth remembering that France Football and FIFA ‘parted ways’ in 2018, after awarding the prize jointly for several years. Since then, the two entities have given out separate awards and in the award given by the governing body of world football, The Best, Linda Caicedo was second last year.

Spanish dominance in the nominations

Spain has the largest number of nominees for the Ballon d’Or: Mariona Caldentey, Alexia Putellas, Aitana Bonmatí, Patri Guijarro and Salma ParallueloThe Olympic gold won by the United States allowed them to have three nominations: Trinity Rodman, Mallory Swanson and Sophia Smith.

In addition, the title won in the Women’s Champions League by FC Barcelona meant that that club had the highest number of nominations, eight in total, in addition
to that of its then coach, Jonatan Giráldez, who went on to manage Leicy Santos’ Washington Spirit.

Giráldez is fighting for the title of best coach with the US national team manager and former Chelsea manager Emma Hayes; the England manager Sarina Wiegman; the Benfica manager Filipa Patao; the Brazilian manager and former Corinthians manager Arthur Elias; and the former Olympique Lyon manager and current Chelsea manager Sonia Bompastor.

SPORTS

More Sports News