Soccer wins, athletics loses. Salma Celeste Paralluelo (Zaragoza, 2003), one of the greatest promises of Spanish sport, has made the final decision. Her presentation last Monday of her as a new Barcelona player clears up the great unknown that hung over her sporting future. The four-year contract signed with the Barça club forces him to abandon the tartan to focus solely and exclusively on the pitch. National football wins an exquisite left foot, a winger that unbalances with its power and speed, but athletics loses a fantastic Olympic medalist project.
For Salma it means closing a dilemma that has always accompanied her, although much more urgently in the last two years. She was always the first to be clear that she could not combine her two passions forever, but knowing that there was an outcome has not made her final decision any less painful. With soccer, she makes the leap to professionalism and to much more succulent contracts economically. In return, she will always carry on her shoulders not knowing how far she could have developed as an athlete, a sport in which she also aimed to be a dazzling star and which she abandons as current national record holder sub-18 of 400 meters hurdles and 400 smooth on indoor track.
“Spanish athletics is not aware of what it loses,” he tells ABC Felix Laguna, Paralluelo’s coach since the girl landed in the cadet category at the Scorpio-71 club in Zaragoza, already being a diamond in the rough. By then football had also entered the life of the young woman, signed by the Zaragoza Women’s Football Club after standing out as a winger in the children’s CD San José, the club in her neighborhood. “Salma is a unique talent. She has hardly trained in athletics and yet she has broken records in Spain and she has marks that Allyson Felix signed at her age. It is very difficult to find another girl like her. With the proper progression, and with no injuries involved, she was a clear contender for Olympic and world medals.”
The precocity of Paralluelo has come to scare. The player is the daughter of Zaragoza and Equatoguinean, and she has always exhibited an imposing physique that has made her stand out from a very young age. In soccer, she was world champion with the under-17 team as soon as she turned 15, the legal limit to be selected. Three months later she also attended her first international championship with the senior athletics team, the European Indoor Championships in Glasgow 2019. She became the second youngest athlete to attend such a championship after the Norwegian walker Kjersti Tysse. «There is not a coach there who likes you more or less and that is why you go. If they call you up, it’s because you have the mark to go.” Paralluelo, 15 years old, won the place by finishing third in the 400-meter absolute National with a mark of 53.83, a record for Spain under-18 and under-20.
tears in resolution
Laguna assures that he and Salma have cried a lot during the last week, when the athlete’s will was already clear. «I had assumed it for a long time, because since she was little she was already seen as decanted towards soccer. And besides, she has always been a bit of a culé because she grew up watching that Barça who won it all. But she had a certain illusion because she has never wanted to leave athletics. She often told me that she was born to run. Whatever it is, it is her decision and I will always support her ».
In the midst of the boom in women’s football, Paralluelo It will also change your life financially. “Without being the most important thing, it must have also influenced him a lot. In the end, athletics is a poorer sport, without as many resources. Being an athlete you see less of the world, the competitions last only one weekend and the hotels are not that good… », Laguna wields with a smile.
Paralluelo’s decision has been simmering in recent months. In April 2021, during a match with the Villarreal, the club with which he debuted in the First Division, tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee. There were nine months of forced hiatus, a slowdown that also cut short his progression in athletics. It became increasingly clear that a decision had to be made. This season Salma has barely jumped into tartan. Her marks give her away. On the other hand, her progression at Villarreal’s left-hander was colossal, so much so that he became the great surprise of the pre-list of Jorge Vilda for the European Championship. The striker ended up also entering the final call, although a new soleus injury separated her from the tournament a few days before its start. She now knows that she will have more opportunities in the future.
An alternative plan
Félix Laguna’s effort to convince Salma Paralluelo to choose athletics has come to the last moment. But the opposition was too strong. The football steamroller put all its gear to work to convince the athlete Salma. Not only Barcelona was after the player, but also many other important teams. “Some of those clubs did not require him to give up athletics. But in the end it was no use delaying it a year either. At his level, continuing to train for two or three days on the track was not going to make him exploit his full potential either. He could no longer be coordinated or compatible ». His coach’s plan was different. «I would have liked her to have focused on athletics until she was 26 years old, to see her train one hundred percent and see how far she could go. Later, at that age, she could still have re-engaged in soccer, because her technique and form were not going to lose her. She so she could have fulfilled all her dreams. Surely with the talent that she has, her clubs would have expected her ».
The choice, in any case, is made. Salma is already a hundred percent footballer, and with very immediate goals. After missing the European Championship, and once she has recovered from her injury, it is possible that she will be called up for the Sub 20 world, to be held in Costa Rica from August 10 to 28. Afterwards, he will focus on his new club. «It has been difficult to give up a sport, but I had to take the step and it could not have been in a better place. Is the best team in the world. Being here is a privilege, I am eager to learn, listen and get the best from all the players », Paralluelo explained as soon as he said yes to his new sporting life.
