Aitana Bonmatí looked distraught and you could be forgiven for thinking she was on the losing side. His hands are next to his head, his eyes are closed, his face is contorted. But then you look at his movement and his energy and that gives away the real story; He runs away with the exhausted players on the blue team. As the mercurial Spanish midfielder sprints towards teammate Mariona Caldentey, England’s Millie Bright stands with her hands on her hips, Georgia Stanway leans forward, hands on her knees, and Alex Greenwood smoothes her hair over the heavy bandage she received from a midfield injury. match.
They are the losers of Spain’s World Cup winners, of a team of warriors who are on their way to becoming the best on the field despite exhausting and long struggles on the field, and of Bonmati, the unplayable engine of Spain and Barcelona. Year came into the spotlight as the best in the world, surpassing her club and country teammate Alexia Putellas.
It’s no surprise that Bonmatí is ranked number 1 in the Guardian’s list of the 100 best female footballers. The only minor shock was that 10 of the 112 judges – former players, managers and journalists from around the world – did not pick him as No. 1. She was so superior that she finished in second place with over 500 points. She placed sam Kerr she.
Going back to the summer of 2022, it was actually Putellas’ brutal misfortune with an anterior cruciate ligament injury on the eve of the European Championship that helped Bonmati rise to prominence, although many had long thought of him as an unsung hero. Barcelona and Spain. But without Putellas, the Catalan magician has been forced to help fill the void as well as add leadership and goals that will increase his threat.
While Bonmatí operated in the shadow of two-time Ballon d’Or winner Putellas, he was not overlooked. Former Barcelona and Spain national team player Xavi is now manager of the Barcelona men’s team after the clever midfielder was sent off in the Under-20 World Cup semi-final while wearing the captain’s armband, meaning he missed Spain’s defeat to Japan in the final. His team told FIFA: “It reminds me of me because we understand football in the same way. Football is about using your brain. If you put talent against physicality, talent always wins because that is the essence of football.”
Relating to: Top 100 female football players in the world 2023
His idol, whose play he modeled to such electrifying effect, also wrote the foreword to his autobiography, saying that watching him play “excited me, lifted me off my seat.” He then prophetically declared: He has all the ingredients to be the best player in the world because, above all else, he is a true perfectionist. The mental strength he has will determine how far he can go.”
From the time she was the only girl among 400 playing for her local team, CD Ribes, to the World Cup final, Bonmatí captured attention and imagination every time she stepped onto the pitch.
In the 2022-23 season, the 25-year-old scored nine league goals and made 10 assists as Barcelona won Liga F and added a further five goals as they cruised to a second European title, despite also receiving a scare in the Champions League. Wolfsburg is in the final. He has scored six goals and provided five assists in Liga F this season and scored three goals in the Champions League.
But goals and assists do not tell the full story of Bonmati’s impact: he controls games with intelligent ferocity, playing with the tempo of matches, selecting the most unpredictable passes with an unrivaled awareness of the spaces opening and closing around him.
His success in 2023 all occurred against a backdrop of turmoil. Bonmatí did not play for his country for most of the year; Bonmati was one of 15 players from the “Las 15” who told the Spanish football federation that the environment around the national team affected their health. He was sidelined along with 14 of his compatriots. The midfielder was one of three returning to the squad for the World Cup.
Manager Jorge Vilda had been backed by the Spanish FA and was still on duty in Australia and New Zealand, but he became an increasingly isolated figure with each victory in the run-up to the final. After the win, the players celebrated separately from the team.
Bonmatí was raised by her parents, Rosa Bonmatí Guidonet and Vicent Conca i Ferràs, both teachers, to understand what it means to struggle. His father was a campaigner for the Movement in Defense of the Land, a coalition of socialist organizations advocating independence for Catalonia, and both were leading members of the movement calling for changes to the law stating that children should be named after their fathers and mothers first. second.
Their anger at the law was so great that, after being told they were not allowed to put Bonmati first, they agreed that her mother would register her as a single parent, leaving baby Aitana with a single surname. Bonmatí was two years old when the law was changed, thanks to his parents’ fight, and the young Catalan was one of the first people in Spain to take his mother’s surname before his father’s.
In his Ballon d’Or speech, delivered in a mixture of Spanish, Catalan and English, he thanked his family for instilling in him the determination to fight. “You fought for change and you succeeded,” he said. “I carry this struggle and resistance in my blood.”
She also spoke about the wider role female football players play in English at the end of her speech: “As role models, we have a responsibility on and off the field. We must be more than athletes. “We must set an example and continue to fight together for a better, peaceful and equal world.”
Yes, Bonmatí is a generational talent on the field, but he is also an increasingly influential leader off the field, someone who will win awards in both arenas for years to come.