The soccer player, who injured her cruciate ligament last July, cannot contain her tears after proclaiming herself the best player in the world for the second consecutive year: “I really miss feeling like a soccer player”
Alexia Putellas she bites her lip. He looked at nothing, at the ceiling of the Chtelet Theater in Paris, at his mother, Eli, very excited. The Ballon d’Or illuminated her face. But even that brilliance couldn’t erase the pain of an interrupted career. A suffering that few can notice, even less on a red carpet or a heavenly stage. And Alexia, whose career was cut short by a knee injury, burst into tears. “I really miss doing what I like the most, feeling like a footballer. I really miss it a lot.”
Alexia has the aura of the chosen ones. The radiance of someone who transcends time. Perhaps she is one of the main people responsible for the fact that soccer practiced by women has ceased to be an anomaly in the system to end up occupying a sporting, media and emotional space that has been fought for for decades. At the age of 28, the Barcelona midfielder took the Ballon d’Or again in Paris and became the first woman to win it twice. Until her arrival, no Spanish soccer player had raised the precious trophy since Luis Surez Miramontes picked up hers in 1961. The story is Alexia’s.
“I ask myself every day if this is real. I remember when I won the first Ballon d’Or that Luis Surez wrote to me and told me: ‘Don’t let it be your goal, but your way out’. That phrase was an inspiration for me. Back to be here is a dream”, admitted the best soccer player in the world.
Not even the rupture of the anterior cruciate ligament suffered on July 5, just before the start of the last European Championship in England and that threatened to destroy her inside, could stop her candidacy. The records of him, up until that damned day his joint snapped, were already overwhelming. So much so that he didn’t even penalize Barcelona for not being able to defend their Champions League title after losing to Olympique de Lyon in Ada Hegerberg (winner of the first Golden Ball in 2018, and who was succeeded in 2019 by the American Megan Rapinoe).
Before, yes, Alexia had already traveled a good part of the way. He conquered the League, with a total of 30 victories, the Queen’s Cup and the Spanish Super Cup. In the league tournament she was the third highest scorer with 18 goals (two less than Geyse Ferreira y Asisat Oshoala) and the highest assistant (17). No one scored more than Alexia, neither in the Copa de la Reina (four) nor in the Champions League (11), a competition in which she was also chosen MVP.
In addition, under his leadership, Barcelona managed to make the Camp Nou beat the world attendance record twice in a game played by women (91,553 spectators against Real Madrid in the quarterfinals of the Champions League; and 91,648 in the duel of semi-final against Wolfsburg).
“My mother,” Alexia whispered after the Ukrainian Andriy Shevchenko handed her her second Ballon d’Or. In a speech in which she mixed Spanish, Catalan and English, the midfielder, who thanked her teammates as best she could for the borrowed, assumed the difficulty of his new conquest: “I thought that the European Championship would be remembered [donde no pudo participar con Espaa, eliminada en la prrroga en cuartos de final por la campeona Inglaterra]. To be honest, when I broke my knee I thought this was not possible. I’m not going to cheat on you.”
It was not the day for the player to speak about the schism against the coach Jorge Vilda, with 15 players giving up wearing the Spain shirt. Some soccer players that she herself supports. “It’s a subject that makes me sad,” said the Barcelona midfielder.
And Alexia, who grew up asserting herself in the Mollet Town Hall square, the girl who held her father’s hand tightly before matches, James, who died without seeing how his daughter reached soccer heaven, did not ask for more trophies or distinctions. “I hope the next time I have to talk is on a football field.” She just wants to get back into his life.
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