Alexia Putellas has not been home since early June. By the time she walks into The New York Times office in Manhattan, more than a month has passed in a blur of airports, hotel rooms and timezones. It’s her last stop before returning home.
“I am really tired,” the former Barcelona midfielder says as she takes her seat in a corner room overlooking the edge of Times Square.
Plenty has transpired in the 32-year-old’s life this summer — including emotions that she still needs to digest.
In May, Putellas won her fourth Champions League title. A few days later, she said goodbye to the club she had spent the last 14 seasons growing. At the time, her next step in soccer was still unknown.
She traveled to Venezuela, where devastating earthquakes struck while she was working events for her Eleven Foundation and the Liga Monumental. She then made her way to the U.S. for, among other things, a chance to watch Spain’s men’s at World Cup in Los Angeles. The day before we talk, she was at the W Hotel in Union Square alongside multi-club owner Michele Kang for her official unveiling as a London City Lionesses player.
Alexia Putellas spent 14 years at Barcelona before saying goodbye to the team at the end of last season. (Shuran Huang / The Athletic)
The two-time Ballon d’Or winner looks different from her farewell event at Camp Nou two months ago, when she was surrounded by the 38 trophies she helped win. Not physically, but in the way she carries herself. She smiles easily. There is a quietness about her that feels tranquil. She looks like someone who has closed one chapter and is ready to embrace the next.
“I am at peace because I’ve chosen the best moment to leave something that any of us would never leave,” she says. “I understood that the option to continue was blurring everything that had happened before.”
As New York carries on outside the windows, her calm stands in stark contrast to the car horns and chaos of 8th Avenue as she reflects on leaving Barcelona, starting over in England and why, after everything she has achieved, she still believes the most meaningful challenges lie ahead.
“It’s not about appearances; it’s about me,” she says. “I value having accepted that there is an end, and not having had that ego that says, ‘No, there’s no end for you.’
“Knowing how to make choices, believing that I’ve chosen the best option to be happy and find new challenges, new motivations,” is what motivates Putellas into her next chapter.
London City announced the signing of two-time Ballon d’Or winner Alexia Putellas in New York. (Shuran Huang / The Athletic)
“When you’re nearing the end of your career — though I don’t know when that will be, because I’d like to play until I’m 37 or 38 — you need to find new dreams and motivations, and discover something you haven’t done yet. I’m calm, at peace, and mentally prepared. I’m confident in what has worked for me in my career, and I enjoy doing it — which is the most important thing.”
Putellas is a competitive force and has lived and breathed football for as long as she can remember — an obsession that has driven her in everything she has done.
However, at the peak of her career in 2022, after winning her first Ballon d’Or, an anterior cruciate ligament injury ruled her out of the European Championship. The injury forced her to slow down and had further impact.
“My mentality changed. You never know what’s going to happen, so you have to enjoy every moment, every game, you don’t know when it will be the last one,” she says. “Since then, I’ve been living, enjoying everything as it was the last.
“My first goal after the injury was to compete again at the highest level, then to be able to be key in the squad again and then to win everything. Only three seasons after my ACL injury, all of that happened.”
During her last season with Barcelona, Putellas wondered, after more than a decade fighting for the same goal, reinventing herself along the way, if she would have the same mentality to do it all again. She had been leading the next generation, but last season, they showed her they were able to lead the team to win it all again.
“If it was my heart, it would say, ‘Be there (in Barcelona), it’s your home, you have your family, you feel the colors,’ but my head told me that it would be the perfect ending,” she says. “That’s what I thought after the Champions League final.”
Alexia Putellas final season with Barcelona was one of her best as she became the club’s second leading goalscorer behind Lionel Messi. (Pablo Rodriguez / Getty Images)
Retiring with Barcelona was not an option.
“Never. The way I understand Barca, it’s to give 100 per cent in everything,” Putellas says. “Mentally and physically, it is difficult to give your 100 per cent in everything during 14, 15 or 20 years. I’ve always said that, at the moment I had doubts, I would make a step aside because I would never want to be a problem.
“There’s a moment when the team needs a change. It’s normal, it’s life. Everything has a beginning and an ending. What happened between that beginning and that ending is what really matters. And I’m very proud and happy about that.”
This does not, however, mean she is not ready to give everything she has to her new club, London City. Owned by Kang, London City will start their second season in England’s Women’s Super League as the only independent club in the league.
“There’s not just one reason,” Putellas says of her decision to join the project. “Going to another league, to the WSL, is a motivation. All of the games are competitive. I want to try that kind of competition in a league.
“In the Spanish league, it’s different. I don’t want to say it’s better or it’s worse, but it’s different. We reached a level with Barca where there’s probably a gap with the rest of the teams. I want to try to give my 100 per cent because the other teams and mine are pushing me to give everything.
“Another reason was that it’s an independent club, a young club. It’s the beginning, I want to contribute and give them whatever I can to make the team grow. There is no men’s team behind it. Everything is different from what I’ve been living in Barca.”
While she has played in front of record crowds of 90,000 at the Camp Nou, that isn’t how the club started.
Finish The Sentence with Alexia Putellas
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“The emotions I felt playing in a full Camp Nou. If I transport myself there, I can still feel it”, she says. “When I started, we had 200 or 300 people watching the game.”
London City’s Hayes Lane in Bromley provides a similar challenge with a capacity of about 6,000. Putellas is looking forward to that.
“I challenge myself to have the level that I have now for as much time as possible, understanding that at some point the performance would decrease due to age,” she says.
“It motivates me a lot to see how far I can go, without setting limits, but looking for where they are and pushing them more and more. Something I have never won is the WSL, the most competitive league and the most difficult to win, because any team can beat anyone. That’s one of my biggest motivations.”
Her motivations match the team’s goals, but she says they must be realistic as building a new club takes time. It’s a process — something Putellas knows well.
“(Winning the league) could happen this season, but you have a lot of teams in the WSL that have been doing this for a long time, so it would be a challenge,” she says.
The midfielder is willing to play several roles for the team, whether that’s as a No 9, a winger or an organiser. “I do what is needed for the team.” (Though she says her best version is as a central attacking midfielder.)
While there were offers from teams across the world, including Boston Legacy and other teams in the U.S., the ability to be a short plane ride (about two hours) from her family was a draw.
“It’s not a long trip,” she says. “Those are the reasons. It’s not about money because if it was, I wouldn’t be here.”
However, money isn’t an issue when it comes to Kang. The billionaire businesswoman has shown she is willing to invest in women’s soccer from her clubs, including OL Lyonnes and the Washington Spirit, to her research into women’s health.
The move to London City is one that Alexia Putellas sees as an evolution of her career. (Shuran Huang / The Athletic)
“I love it because she succeeded in the business industry and now she’s fully committed to women’s football,” Putellas says. “The more people interested in women’s football, the better we will be. I’m happy to help her.”
Kang launched a $55 million initiative with U.S. Soccer to establish the Kang Women’s Institute. One of the aims, addressing the high rate of ACL injuries in female athletes, is particularly close to Putellas.
“It’s what we need in the game, more research, more investment, more people that want to know what is happening, not just in injuries, but in everything,” Putellas says.
After recovering from ACL tear, Putellas had one of her best seasons in recent years, scoring 20 goals in 43 games, putting her in contention for a third Ballon d’Or. This season, she became the second-highest goalscorer in the club’s history, behind only Messi with 672.
“I fought a lot against that injury,” she says. “I worked a lot, even on my days off, I was at the gym or with the physio. I did that for four years, that’s a lot. To achieve that level and be myself again, I’m very proud.”
Alexia Putellas won 38 trophies with Barcelona, including 10 league titles. (Joan Valls / Getty Images)
Those accolades include four Champions Leagues, 10 league titles, 10 Copa de la Reina titles, four Spanish Super Cups with Barcelona, and one World Cup and two Nations Leagues trophies with Spain.
“I live a lot in the present. Now I am enjoying this interview, being in The New York Times for the first time,” she says. “Tomorrow, I will remember it with nostalgia. I am super nostalgic, but in a sense of how cool it is to live it.”
The two-time Ballon d’Or winner is now set to start a season away from home.
“Barcelona is my childhood club, my family. It was a dream. I’m very proud of what we made after these 14 seasons, what we won, what we’ve changed, how we’ve inspired young girls and young boys,” Putellas says. “I hope they keep winning. I have friends there and I will support them from a distance.”
It feels strange, but she is motivated. “It’s a new adventure, a new chapter of my life,” she says. “I kind of reinvent myself professionally and personally.”
