🏆 Update — 27 October 2026: Alexia Putellas won the Women’s Ballon d’Or on 26 October 2026, her third after 2021 and 2022, equalling Aitana Bonmatí’s record of three.
On Monday night, the Ballon d’Or returns to London — and the favourite for the women’s award is a player chasing history. 👑
Alexia Putellas has already won the Ballon d’Or twice. A third on October 26 would make her only the second woman ever to win three.
It would cap a comeback story that took her from a career-threatening knee injury back to the very top of the world game. This is how a girl from a small Catalan town became La Reina — the queen of Barcelona, and now the new star of English football.
Then: The Girl Who Wouldn’t Stop
Alèxia Putellas i Segura was born on February 4, 1994, in Mollet del Vallès, a town just north of Barcelona. She fell in love with football at school and joined her first club at seven.
Her youth career wound through Sabadell and Barcelona’s academy before she broke into Espanyol’s first team at just 16. A single season at Levante followed in 2011–12 — and it changed everything.
She scored 15 goals in 34 league games for Levante, playing further forward than she does today. Barcelona came calling, and in July 2012, aged 18, she signed for the club she had supported all her life.
The Middle: Two Golden Balls and a Broken Knee
The early Barcelona years brought league titles and cups, but no European crown. The 2019 Champions League final defeat to Lyon — heavy and humbling — became the turning point the squad still talks about.
Two years later came the treble. Barcelona beat Chelsea 4–0 in the 2021 Champions League final, and Putellas swept every individual prize in sight.
She won the Ballon d’Or, UEFA’s Player of the Year and FIFA’s Best — the first player ever to win all three in one year. She did it again in 2022, becoming the first woman to win those awards in consecutive years.
In between, she played in front of a world-record 91,648 crowd at Camp Nou against Real Madrid in March 2022. Then came the cruel twist.
Days before Euro 2022, she tore the anterior cruciate ligament in her left knee in training. The tournament went on without her, and her recovery took around ten months.
She fought her way back in time for the 2023 World Cup — coming off the bench in the final as Spain beat England 1–0 in Sydney to become world champions. 🏆
Barcelona’s dominance rolled on. In the 2024 Champions League final she came on late against Lyon, won the ball in her own box, and scored in the 95th minute to seal a 2–0 win — shirt off, bowing to the fans.
Now: A Farewell, a New League, and a Third Crown?
The 2025–26 season was her last dance at Barcelona — and it was vintage Putellas. As captain, she led the club to another quadruple: Liga F, the Copa de la Reina, the Spanish Super Cup and a fourth Champions League title.
That fourth European crown was sealed with a 4–0 win over OL Lyonnes. Putellas scored 20 goals and made 14 assists in 43 games, and was named the Champions League’s Player of the Season.
She finished with 507 appearances and 233 goals for Barcelona — a club record for the women’s team. Then she said goodbye.
Fourteen seasons after arriving as a teenager, she left as a free agent — and chose a new challenge in England with London City Lionesses, where she has already scored three goals in her first WSL games.
For Spain, she remains the heartbeat of the side: a Nations League winner, a Euro 2025 runner-up, and the player who scored twice as Spain beat England 4–0 to seal World Cup qualification.
Now the sport waits on Monday’s gala at the London Palladium — the ceremony co-hosted by Thierry Henry — where Putellas is favourite to lift a third Ballon d’Or.
Her story mirrors the fastest rises in the men’s game, like Lamine Yamal’s teenage explosion at Barcelona — except hers took the long way round, through injury and back.
While Ousmane Dembélé defends the men’s crown he won last year, Putellas chases her own piece of history.
The girl from Mollet del Vallès who once had to fight just to play is, at 32, one win from standing alone at the very top again. 👑