2023-09-10 12:59:35
MADRID, 10 Sep. (EUROPA PRESS) –
Spanish midfielder Aitana Bonmatí will start as the undisputed favorite to win the Ballon d’Or trophy on October 30, one more recognition that would culminate her excellent year, marked by having won the two biggest competitions of the season and by her leading role in both.
At 25 years old, the FC Barcelona player has confirmed herself as one of the great stars of women’s football. She was already among the best, but her emergence in the last year has shown that all the predictions about her have been confirmed and that she is now ready to receive the individual recognitions that had previously been denied to her. In the past, she finished fifth in the Ballon d’Or and in The Best of FIA, awards that seem to be her property soon.
The one from Sant Pere de Ribes is undoubtedly one of the players who most represents the style of the Spanish team that has just been proclaimed world champion. The Barça midfielder has guided ‘La Roja’ towards her first star, being the metronome of Jorge Vilda’s team, and resembling the role of one of her football idols, Xavi Hernández.
The Catalan was Spain’s lighthouse, setting the pace for the Spanish team in the World Cup, also with exquisite precision, thanks to a passing efficiency of 87 percent. And Aitana Bonmatí is a dominant player in the center of the field since she covers a lot of playing field and is brilliant in the defensive and offensive sections. In fact, according to ‘Driblab’, she topped the list of midfielders with the most dribbles at the event. completed (15) and the most balls recovered in the final third (12). Some records that expose the versatility of the Barça player.
Aitana Bonmatí demonstrated in Oceania the enormous step forward taken this season, perhaps ‘forced’ by the serious injury of Alexia Putellas, which surely caused both her role and that of Patri Guijarro in her club to rise and that has made them two great protagonists of the football year, although the Balearic Islands finally chose to give up the World Cup and remain faithful to their ideas.
Already before this event, Sant Pere de Ribes had demonstrated its potential and was looking for a great finishing touch to its campaign where it had won the Champions League, the F League and the Spanish Super Cup, collective achievements that together with the on August 20 make her the undisputed favorite for the Ballon d’Or.
THE BEST OF THE CHAMPIONS, OF EUROPE AND THE WORLD
In the domestic tournament she scored 9 goals and distributed 10 assists, but in the Champions League she was decisive, although she did not score in the final against the German Wolfsburg. The Spanish player was the player who participated in the most goals (12), the highest assister in the competition (7), with an assist in the final, the one who generated the most chances (32), the second who completed the most passes, with a 86 percent pass effectiveness, made the most recoveries (80), completed the most dribbles (20) and the second best scorer with five goals.
All of this allowed her to be chosen as the ‘MVP’ of the season in the top continental competition thanks to a performance that she transferred to the World Cup where she was the midfielder with the most shots (19), in addition to being the second who has participated in the most goals, a total of 5 (3 goals and 2 assists). Barça’s distribution data is also notable, completing 328 passes precisely, 156 of them in the last third of the field, and also generating 11 scoring chances, while in defensive terms, they recovered 51 balls for Spain , winning 31 of the 59 duels played.
Furthermore, their match in the final against England was superb, especially in the second half. The ‘6’ did and undid as he pleased, with overwhelming superiority over his rivals in every action taken. She was the third Spanish player who intervened the most, with 74 actions with the ball; the one who completed the most passes in the final third (24) and the one who performed the most good dribbles (6), completing her outstanding performance with 2 chances created, 96% passing effectiveness, 9 ball recoveries and 10 duels won.
She was chosen the ‘MVP’ in the matches against Costa Rica and Switzerland and the Ballon d’Or of the World Cup, a new recognition that would be joined weeks later by the ‘Best European Player’ of the 2022-2023 season, in a vote where she won with 308 points, 200 more than the Australian Sam Kerr (88), second.
PATRI GUIJARRO AND SALMA PARALLUELO COULD SUPPORT HER
Everything indicates that Aitana Bonmatí will take over from Alexia Putellas in the Ballon d’Or honors on October 30, which would confirm the power of Spanish women’s football, winner of the last three editions of the trophy, and would make her the third Spanish after her teammate and the late Luis Suárez to have this award.
And it does not seem that the Catalan midfielder can have rivals on the list of 30 candidates for her enormous campaign, except, precisely, teammates and also Spanish, so it would not be a surprise if the ‘Top 3’ was filled with footballers. national.
Along with Bonmatí, her teammates Patri Guijarro, Salma Paralluelo and Mapi León, and Olga Carmona (Real Madrid) and Alba Redondo (Levante) were selected. The first three had, by level and by trophies, surely a better year than any of the rest of the list, although the Aragonese center, like Guijarro, remained firm in his idea of not going to the national team because he did not consider the changes enough made.
The Spaniard, for her part, was key in the Blaugrana team during the season and seasoned it in the Champions League final in Eindhoven (Netherlands) with the two goals that started the comeback against Wolfsburg and that led her to be chosen ‘MVP’ of the match.
But the other soccer player on the list who has had an outstanding year and who could get ‘closer’ to Aitana Bonmatí has undoubtedly been Salma Paralluelo, who practically has all the possible titles when she is not yet 20 years old and who also participated in the World Cup He was key with his goals against the Netherlands and Sweden. In addition, her title in Sydney made her the only player to have the triple World Cup crown since in August 2022 she won the U-20 and in November 2018 the U-17.
Of the rest, Australian forward Sam Kerr could sneak into this ‘Top 3’ after another quite solid year with the Champions League semi-finals with Chelsea and fourth place in the World Cup with her team, in addition to the League and Cup double with the London team.
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