2023-08-06 19:12:54
In the best version of Spain and Barça there is a name that shines with its own light. Aitana Bonmatí (Sant Pere de Ribes, 1998) has a special profile and never falls short, neither with the vindictive character that runs through her blood, nor in the game, where she perfectly exemplifies the touch football that places her as one of the leaders both in the Barça club and with the national team. “Any gesture adds up if it is in the fight for equality,” says the first chapter of her biography. A good statement of intent that she begins with her last name, which she changed her name to put her mother first.
Competitive, winning and ambitious, the Catalan was one of the leaders of the famous revolt against Jorge Vilda, the national coach, last September, when 15 wayward players, most of them from Barcelona, informed the Federation of their resignation from the team for the her refusal to remove the Madrid coach from his position. They alleged physical and psychological reasons for this. They wanted to be guaranteed a professional structure like they have in their clubs. “What we want is the best for the good of women’s football. We want to fight to be the best in the world and I think this says a lot about us”, she explained in an interview with ‘Diari Ara’, emphasizing a thread that has intensified in women’s sport in recent times with the lack of professional resources and mismanagement as a backdrop.
His incorporation into the group that is contesting the Women’s World Cup was a surprise since it was not known until the end if Jorge Vilda would include any of the players involved in his final list. Several of them publicly opened up to dialogue and took a step back to attend the meeting in Australia and New Zealand: Mariona Caldentey, Ona Batlle and Aitana Bonmatí were summoned. The number ‘6’ received the award for the best player of the match after the round of 16 match against Switzerland. An award that she has received on several occasions during the season with her club and it is not new for her but it is very important after spending practically the whole year outside La Roja, where she is the great reference of the Iberian team and her star status prevented her from absent from the World Cup. Her presence at the Oceania event is key to reinforcing her candidacy for the Ballon d’Or – she was fifth last season – after the great course she has signed with Barça (triple League, Super Cup and Champions League) and being one of the great protagonists of the planet soccer.
On and off the playing fields, she makes visible various social and political causes, be it on mental health issues, feminism or the fight to professionalize the Women’s League. «Sometimes I go to play some courses and put my hands to my head. Do I really have to play here as a professional? You have to put some minimum conditions so that there is less possibility of injuring yourself, “reflected the player, who was always clear that she wanted to dedicate herself to football although at school, surrounded by children, many did not accept that she played better than them. “Now it’s different, the kids see women playing on TV and they already see it differently, but until recently it wasn’t like that,” laments the player, who says that her family was not the classic soccer fan, as well as delves into the lack of female role models when she started kicking the ball. «The girls who play soccer know that things are serious, when I started I didn’t see a future, but there is, although there is still a long way to go. I am privileged.”
«I always push myself to the maximum, and very rarely am I satisfied with what I do. It is something that I have always said that I have to manage, because it can cause suffering for me,” the young woman recently said in Vogue, where she admitted, as she did after the win against Japan, that she hates losing because she has a “super-competitive” gene at the same time. who accepts having a responsibility beyond the playing fields.
Aitana is a veteran at 25 years old, and she knows well that her role without Alexia Putellas, the current best player on the planet, is to be the leader of her team’s game, be it Barcelona or the Spanish team, and against Switzerland she shone brilliantly. superlative as he used to throughout the season in the Barça team. The Catalan midfielder, flexitarian, faithful admirer of Xavi Hernández and the combinations in small spaces, she lives a sweet moment in football and was chosen as the best player of the last season in the Champions League.
Bonmatí was already the conductor of Jorge Vilda in the last Euro Cup in 2022 with the senior team, with which she made her debut in November 2017 after a successful career in lower categories (European champion under-17 and under-19, and sub-20 world champion). Now after her return ‘in extremis’ to the national team, she continues to put magic in each duel for La Roja, which awaits the Netherlands in the quarterfinals to continue making history in this women’s World Cup.
#Aitana #Bonmatí #leader #Jorge #Vildas #rebels #MVP #Spanish #womens #soccer #team #World #Cup