Most football fans will search the internet for the biography and best goals of 2022 Ballon d’Or winner Alexia Putekha, but everyone knows Darvin Nunez or Dusan Vlahovic who didn’t make it into the top 15 men’s awards.
The Spaniard, who plays as a midfielder, made history on Monday night. She became the first female football player to win the award for the second year in a row. In 2018, the Ballon d’Or was awarded to a woman for the first time, and the winner was Ada Heggerberg. It has been prescribed to men since 1956.
Women’s Golden Ball in a row, Alexia Putellas!#ballondor pic.twitter.com/UygJYBwyS9
— Golden ball #ballondor (@francefootball) October 17, 2022
Alexia Putejas was born in February 1994 in Moll del Vallès, a suburb of Barcelona. He started playing football in the street. She was the only girl, but that wasn’t a problem. As she admitted, none of her family and friends stopped her.
“I was the only girl who played with the boys, but that wasn’t a problem. Nobody told me I couldn’t play or insulted me. No one was surprised when the girl said she wanted to play football. I was lucky that I had the support of family and friends, but not all girls have it. The new generation should normalize this. Football belongs to everyone,” he wrote in players’ tribune after the award of the first “Golden Ball” in his career.
Growing up in the suburbs of Barcelona, her great love was Barcelona. When she was little, she went to the Camp Nou with her father to watch the men’s team.
“Going out on the field, I wanted to sit as close to the players as possible. I always said that we need to get closer to the field, although in fact the view was worse. My desire was to be part of the action. Then if you told me that one day I would play in this stadium, I would say: “It’s impossible, only men play here.”
👀 Alexia Putellas numbers this year ✨
Will he win the Ballon de Oro? 🧐 pic.twitter.com/vpYv7oauBb
— Diario SPORT (@sport) October 17, 2022
A few years later, Alexia and her company managed to fill the stadium. On 22 April 2022, over 90,000 football fans gathered at the club’s historic headquarters to watch the first Champions League semi-final against Wolfsburg.
91,648 spectators set a new world record for women’s football matches. The previous one belonged to Barcelona again, with 91,553 spectators gathered to watch the second leg of the Champions League quarter-final against Real Madrid. “It was the realization of my dream from the age of six,” Puteyas admitted.
We have a new WORLD RECORD ATTENDANCE at the women’s soccer game! 🤩
91,648 fans watched Barcelona Femeni vs Wolfsburg at Camp Nou to make history 🔥 pic.twitter.com/FtTzpB0lVd
— GOAL Africa (@GOALAfrica) April 22, 2022
Putella’s career began with an innocent lie. She must have been 8 years old when she started playing football for a family friend’s team. True, there were 7, but this could not stop her. In 2005, he caught the attention of the Barcelona academies, but did not last long, leaving after a year. It’s not time yet.
She continued her career at Espanyol, where she made her debut in the women’s team at the age of 16. He was part of the team that won the Cup in 2010. He moved to Levante where he finished the 2011-2012 season with 15 goals in 34 games.
In the summer of 2012, he moved to Barcelona. Her childhood dream came true. A few weeks before the start of the European Under-19 Championship, her father passed away. Since then, she remembers him in every great success, in every award, in every difficult moment. He made her love football and Barcelona.
“I do everything for you. I hope you are proud of your daughter wherever you are. This is for you, dad,” she said during last year’s Ballon d’Or ceremony. Competing in Barcelona, Putejas wrote her own story.
With the Blaugrana, he won six championships and seven Spanish Cups. In 2021, he moved up to the Champions League as captain after a 4-0 win over Chelsea. But the most defining moment in Barcelona’s history was defeat.
🥇 2021/22 UEFA Women’s Player of the Year is… ALEXIA PUTELLAS!
⚽ #OFF the top scorer becomes the winner in a row! She became the first woman in Spain to play 100 caps before an injury killed her. #WEURO2022 dream.
❤️ Well done, Alexia, we hope you will be back on the field soon!#UEFA awards pic.twitter.com/OFVub7gWD6
— UEFA (@UEFA) August 25, 2022
The 2019 Champions League final against French side Lyon was the turning point for this team to take the next step. “It was truly one of the most important moments of our career. Lyon was then on a different level. We couldn’t get close to their level, but we didn’t think we’d failed. It is strange to say that after the loss I was calm. We saw where the threshold was that we had to cross. The path was clear and we knew we had to work harder.”
Pouteias scored 29 goals and provided 17 assists for Barcelona last season. Blaugrana won the title with an absolute victory, reaching the Champions League final, where they lost to Lyon with a score of 3:1. The Spaniard became the top scorer and was recognized as the best player of the tournament.
Euro 2022 was a big test for Putejas. Having already taken all the prizes, Spain with her in its composition was a big favorite to win the trophy. However, the day before the start of the tournament, he suffered a torn cruciate ligament.
Spain were knocked out in the quarter-finals by eventual winners England. Alexia Puteias has undergone surgery and is estimated to be back on the playing field in 10 months.
Barcelona fans refer to her as “Queen” after the successes and awards she has won. “At first I was a little shy. Everyone can call me whatever they want,” admits Alexia Putejas, the world’s leading soccer player at the moment.
Source: Kathimerini
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