Historic year for Aitana Bonmatí

Aitana Bonmatí is rewriting the football history books. She has added The Best to her impressive CV of awards, which include the Ballon d'Or won last October in a year that Barça won three, major honours and she also helped Spain to a first ever World Cup victory. The last few months have seen the Catalan star collecting silverware left, right and centre. And very deservedly so.

Best in the world

She ended the calendar year with 25 goals and 27 assists for club and country. In a year that started with the Spanish Super Cup victory in Merida, scoring two goals in the final against Real Sociedad and being recognised with the MVP award, in 22 Liga games this calendar year, she's posted some quite extraordinary performances such as her two goals and two assists against Osasuna and her two goals and one assist in the game with Atlético Madrid in April, a 4-0 win that as good as wrapped up the title for the blaugrana ladies.

She may not have scored in the Champions League, but she did give three assists, including one for Patri Guijarro in the amazing comeback against Wolfsburg in the final, and her performances were enough to win her the MVP award for that competition too, which Barça won for the second time.

At club level, she was only on the losing side once in 2023, and that was in a game with Madrid CFF after the Liga title had already been won.

It would seem that things couldn't have possibly got any better for her, but they did! Alexia then went to Australia and New Zealand for the World Cup and played a central role in her country winning the crown for the first time ever. En route to the final her standout performance was the round of 16 game with Switzerland in which she scored two goals and gave assists for Alba Redondo and Jennifer Hermoso.

Spain of course marched on to beat England in the final, with Aitana joined in the winning team by a host of her Barça team-mates. And she was named Player of the Tournament. When it comes to the best women's player of the year just ended, there isn't really any room for discussion. Aitana wins hands down.

More to come

The most immediate challenge for Aitana and her Barça colleagues is the Spanish Super Cup, where they'll face Real Madrid in Wednesday's semi-final. Then there's the league, which the blaugarana are comfortably leading at the moment, and the Champions League, where qualification for the knockout stages is already assured.

And this summer brings the Olympic Games in Paris. Hopefully. Qualification for that isn't over yet, with the finalists being decided in February.