Spain star Aitana Bonmatí has a point to prove
Don't take this the wrong way, but Aitana Bonmatí doesn't really want to blaze a new trail for women's soccer. Well, actually she does, just not intentionally, not in the way you might think, and not in the way so many others would lean into.
Let's get on with explaining before we start going around in circles here, which is incidentally the feeling often experienced by opponents who face Bonmati, Spain's 25-year-old midfield maestro tasked with leading her team to its first-ever Women's World Cup triumph.
Bonmati and her teammates take on the Netherlands in the quarterfinal stage Thursday (9 p.m. ET on FOX and the FOX Sports app), meaning she's potentially three games away from creating history and, if like usual she's at the center of everything, probably cementing herself as the best women's player in the world.
The first thing to know about her is that she doesn't care particularly for such titles.
"Best women's player."
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Bonmati doesn't necessarily subscribe to the theory that women's soccer is its own separate entity, with its own characteristics, its own tactical suitability, its own methodology for producing players and developing skills and — most important of all — for winning championships.
To her, excellence is excellence, and excellence is worth copying. And, because she's Barcelona to the absolute bone, there was only one philosophy she was ever going to adopt when it came to the beautiful game.
"When I hear the word Barca, I have a very deep feeling," Bonmati told UEFA.com. "It does come from the inside, because it has been like this for my whole life. I play for Barca, and I have always been a supporter. I'm very proud to support and play for this club. It's very rewarding for me, since this is something I dreamed of as a child."
Bonmati grew up just outside Barcelona, in the fishing port of Vilanova i La Geltru. This is deep Catalan country, the sort of place where soccer is a religion and everyone worships at the cathedral of the Camp Nou, Barcelona's iconic stadium.
Barca fandom is not as simple as wanting the team to win. There are certain ways of doing things, a tactical style that marries craft and precision and beauty and has revolutionized the sport on more than one occasion.
When Bonmati joined the club's youth ranks at 13, she fell even deeper into its soccer magic. She'd take the bus two hours to get to training because her mother, diagnosed with fibromyalgia, was unable to drive her. On midweek game days when the men's team coached by Pep Guardiola was playing, she'd count the minutes on the clock, unable to bear the anticipation.
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When she rose to the women's team and became a star, she wanted only one thing. To uphold the traditions that came before her.
"Our connection says a lot about this club, it says a lot about the fans, it says a lot about us," she said. "I think it's the work we've all done, together, fighting for a common goal, which is to take the Barca name around the world."
Just a few years ago, Barca Femeni games were played at Mini Estadi, a smaller venue owned by the club where match attendances were often little more than friends and family affairs.
Now, the Camp Nou, that awe-inspiring giant, is where the team takes on the best in Europe in the UEFA Women's Champions League, which it won in 2021 by thrashing Sam Kerr's Chelsea and again this past season by beating Wolfsburg.
The crowd of 91,648 that watched the Champions League semifinal in 2022 was a world record for a women's game. Yet more than these accolades, Bonmati cares about maintaining the Barca way.
Her autobiography contained 14 chapters, in honor of 1970s Barcelona icon Johan Cruyff, whose number she also wears. It would be like a new Lakers player who grew up in Los Angeles not picking 8 or 24 for Kobe, but 44 to pay homage to Jerry West.
This is deep love, generational stuff, lifelong, obsessive, this-is-what-we-talk-about-at-the-dinner-table type of devotion.
Bonmati has a close friendship with current Barcelona head coach Xavi, who won eight La Liga titles and four Champions Leagues during his playing career. Now, here is the really significant bit. For it was the Xavi and his midfield mastery, along with Andres Iniesta, who took Barcelona's "tiki taka" possession style and used it to help Spain to three straight major championship titles from 2008-2012 (Euros-World Cup-Euros).
"To see that Aitana has inherited this football DNA and Barça values, it makes me feel very proud," Xavi wrote in Bonmati's autobiography.
Bonmati rarely played soccer with girls growing up, getting into scraps with local boys who all played well because that's how they spent their spare time and who never gave her an inch because they knew she'd embarrass them.
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She works relentlessly to improve, and during a recent summer — after her left foot was given an average grade by coaches — sought to make it as good as her right, which just so happens to be probably the most accurate and technically sound in the World Cup.
Did the work pay off? Well, she's scored three times in Australia and New Zealand, all with her left.
No other World Cup team is able to control games like Spain, for which Bonmati is the puppet master, especially with Barca colleague Alexia Putellas continuing to struggle with an injury.
The Netherlands clash will be a contrast, with the Dutch boasting a five-player midfield that congests and deconstructs, and which gave the United States nightmares before Lindsey Horan turned things around with an angry headed equalizer.
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And before you think Bonmati is all cerebral and technical, there's a nasty side that make her teammates smile when it rears its head. She's not the captain, but she leads by doing, leads by facilitating, and if that doesn't work, leads by yelling at the top of her lungs.
"It is innate," she told El Pais. "Even if I don't wear the armband, I like to talk, communicate and transfer character to the team. I always try to help, whether it goes well or badly."
It's going pretty well. A group stage defeat to Japan was a setback, but it is behind the team now. If Spain isn't the tournament favorite, it is darn close to it.
And its star player has a point to prove — and a legacy to uphold.
Martin Rogers is a columnist for FOX Sports and the author of the FOX Sports Insider newsletter. Follow him on Twitter @MRogersFOX and subscribe to the daily newsletter.
