Aitana Bonmatí

Aitana Bonmatí i Conca (born 18 January 1998) is a Catalan professional footballer who plays midfield for Barcelona in Liga F and for Spain’s national team. By 2023, she had won every major club and individual prize available to a European player, and her 2022–23 season is the most decorated of any footballer ever. She is widely regarded as one of the best players in women’s football and among the greatest of all time.

Bonmatí joined Barcelona’s youth system in 2012 and spent six years developing through La Masia. She moved up to the first team before the 2016–17 season, making substitute appearances until her breakthrough in 2018–19. With Barcelona, she has won seven league titles, seven Copas de la Reina, four Supercopas, three Copas Catalunyas, and three UEFA Women’s Champions League titles, including three trebles and a continental quadruple. She was named MVP of the 2023 Champions League final when Barcelona won their second, then became the team’s central figure in the 2022–23 and 2023–24 seasons. Following teammate Alexia Putellas, she has collected multiple major individual honors: the Ballon d’Or Féminin in 2023 and 2024 (the second player to win it twice, after Putellas), The Best FIFA Women’s Player Award in 2023 and 2024, and the UEFA Women’s Player of the Year in 2023, after which that award was merged with the Ballon d’Or Féminin.

Internationally, Bonmatí succeeded with Spain’s under-17, under-19, and under-20 teams. She won two UEFA Women’s Youth Championships (2015 with the under-17s, 2017 with the under-19s) and was runner-up in two FIFA Youth Women’s World Cups (2014 with the under-17s, 2018 with the under-20s). She joined the senior squad in 2017 and played at the 2019 World Cup and 2022 European Championship. She starred in the 2023 World Cup, where Spain won the title and she earned the Golden Ball as tournament best player, and in the 2024 UEFA Women’s Nations League Finals, where Spain again won and she was voted Player of the Finals. In 2024, she won the Laureus World Sports Award for Sportswoman of the Year, following Megan Rapinoe who first earned the honor for a footballer in 2020.