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Women’s National Team

Six Spanish nominees for the Ballon d'Or!

Alexia, Aitana, Mariona, Patri, Esther and Pina aim to secure a fifth consecutive Ballon d'Or for Spanish women’s football
Thu, 07/08/2025 - 17:44

Since 2021, the Women’s Ballon d'Or has been lifted every year by a Spanish player. Alexia Putellas won it in 2021 and 2022, and Aitana Bonmatí did so in 2023 and 2024. Two historic doubles with the international football world bowing to the magic of Spanish players. This 2025, both return to lead a list in which Spain is represented by four more candidates: Mariona Caldentey, Patri Guijarro, Esther González and Claudia Pina.

National talent shines on the world stage with three names standing out. The Ballon d'Or, the most prestigious of individual awards, aims to recognise the best player of the season each year based on statistics, titles won and their influence throughout the season. More than enough reason to support the serious candidacy of the Spanish players.

Alexia Putellas, Aitana Bonmatí, Patri Guijarro and Claudia Pina were all runners-up in the European Championships with the national team and Champions League runners-up with F.C. Barcelona, a club with which they also won three titles: La Liga, the Super Cup and the Copa de la Reina Iberdrola.

In Alexia Putellas’ case, she is the second top scorer of the season and the top assist provider for her club, something she also demonstrated with Spain in the recent Euros in Switzerland, as the player with the most assists (4), and POTM awards in two matches, against Portugal and Belgium, with three goals to her name, only surpassed by Esther González. The national team’s striker, also a candidate on this list of thirty players, claimed the Golden Boot at the last European Championships in Switzerland with four goals.

Aitana Bonmatí, Best Player of the Tournament at the Euros in Switzerland, also received two more individual recognitions as Player of the Match Awards against Switzerland and Germany in the quarter-finals and semi-finals, scoring the goal with which Spain beat Germany for the first time in our history and reached, also for the first time, a European Championships final.

Mariona Caldentey won the Champions League with Arsenal, becoming the Spanish player with the most Champions League titles (4), winning her third consecutive title — this year with the English club and the two previous ones with Barça. Mariona finished the Euros with two goals, one of them in the final, and two assists.

The dominance of Spanish football was clear with up to four players in the Euros Team of the Tournament. Paredes, Putellas and Bonmatí featured in this XI along with Patri Guijarro, who, with her quiet work in the midfield of the runners-up Spain and standing out as POTM in the group stage match against Italy, adds to the candidates.

Of the thirty names, to the five mentioned above we must add Claudia Pina, top scorer of the UEFA Women’s Champions League with 10 goals, and who scored 24 goals with Barça and six with the national team.

Of the six nominees, four play for F.C. Barcelona, who are also candidates for the Women’s Club of the Season award.

This prize, awarded annually by France Football magazine, features a jury made up of one hundred specialised journalists from the world’s leading sports publications and has been held since 1956. This is the 69th edition, one in which English football will be strongly represented, with Alessia Russo as the main figure of this Spanish-English era of global dominance of football this year at both club and international level, having won the Champions League and the Euros.

This year’s gala will be historic for recognising, for the first time, the same awards in both the women’s and men’s categories, with the Kopa Trophy for best young female player being presented for the first time, where Vicky López (the youngest Spanish player to score in a Euros or World Cup) is among the nominees, the Yashin Trophy for best goalkeeper, with Cata Coll among the candidates, and the Gerd Müller Trophy for best goal.

We will have to wait until 22 September when, at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, the name of the 2025 Ballon d’Or winner is set to be announced, to see whether Spanish women’s football secures its fifth consecutive Ballon d’Or.

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