Monday, October 28, 2024
| Updated 10/29/2024 01:15h.
Aitana Bonmatí was recognized this Monday, for the second consecutive year, as the best soccer player in the world. The second Ballon d’Or won by the Barcelona midfielder thus prolongs the hegemony of Spanish football in the women’s category. After linking four awards, since the previous two destined for Aitana Bonmatí were for her teammate and national team Alexia Putellas, in 2021 and 2022, Spain has now added a poker in six editions of this trophy.
Aitana is once again the world queen and, with her recent renewal with Barça until 2028, she is also the highest-paid soccer player on the planet, seeing her salary triple, from 300,000 euros to one million euros per season. In the 2023-2024 campaign that allowed her to retain the crown, the Catalan player won, in addition to the Nations League with Spain, and the MVP of the tournament, the Champions League, the League, the Cup and the Super Cup with the Barça team.
«As I always say, this cannot be achieved alone. I am very lucky to be surrounded by great players who make me continue to evolve and grow and be better every day. Thanks to Barcelona and the president, Joan Laporta, for everything they do for us,” Aitana proclaimed after collecting her second Ballon d’Or.
The fiasco of the Spanish team at the Paris Olympic Games has not prevented Aitana from occupying the Ballon d’Or throne again, ahead of the Norwegian Caroline Graham Hansen and Salma Paralluelo, teammates at Barça. The footballer born 26 years ago in Sant Pere de Ribes (Barcelona) played 41 games with the culé team last season, in which she scored 19 goals and gave the same number of assists.
The Olympic dream was missing
The second Ballon d’Or that allows her to equal the list of winners with Alexia Putellas represents for Aitana Bonmatí the culmination of another memorable season in which she won all the titles played with the team of her life. She was only denied an Olympic medal, even though she was the first Spanish player in history to score in a Games.
Aitana Bonmati, this Monday in her gratitude speech after winning her second Ballon d’Or.
EFE
The player trained in the Barça youth ranks is already a legend of women’s football. World champion with the national team in 2023, the Ballon d’Or has once again rewarded the quality, vision of the game, personality and ambition of a footballer who has, so far, accumulated three European Cups, five Leagues, six Queen’s Cups and four Spanish Super Cups. An indisputable myth of Spanish football and Barcelona, a product of La Masia, who made the definitive leap to the Barça first team eight years ago and who in just two years has risen to number one in the world with two awards in a row and has managed to sign the same milestone that Alexia Putellas achieved.
Pedro Sánchez: «Spanish football is unstoppable»
This Monday night, the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, congratulated all the Spanish winners of the Ballon d’Or gala, with Aitana Bonmatí and Rodri Hernández leading the way as great winners. And in this regard he wanted to highlight that “Spanish football is unstoppable.”
«Aitana and Rodri, Ballon d’Or. Lamine, best young player. Jenni Hermoso, Socrates Prize. Real Madrid, best men’s team. Barça, best women’s team. “Spanish football is unstoppable!” he wrote on his official profile on the social network X after finishing this awards ceremony, one of the most anticipated annual events in the world of football.
