Alexia Putellas

Alexia Putellas (born February 4, 1994, Mollet del Vallès, Catalonia, Spain) is a Spanish professional footballer who plays as an attacking midfielder and is considered one of the greatest players in the women’s game. She spent 14 seasons with Spanish giants FC Barcelona Femení from 2012 to 2026, captaining the women’s team through a period of domestic and continental dominance, before joining the English Women’s Super League (WSL; top-tier women’s football league) club London City Lionesses. Putellas won the Ballon d’Or Féminin, the Best FIFA Women’s Player award, and the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) Women’s Player of the Year prize in 2021 and 2022. During her tenure with the FC Barcelona women’s team, she won more than 35 major trophies, including 10 Liga F titles, 10 Copas de la Reina (Spanish: Queen’s Cups), and 4 UEFA Women’s Champions League crowns. She won a third Ballon d’Or Féminin in 2026.

Early life and youth career

Putellas was born to Jaume Putellas Rota and Elisabet (Eli) Segura Sabaté. She played youth football from 2001 to 2005 with CE Sabadell, a football franchise based in the eponymous city north of Barcelona, before spending one year in FC Barcelona’s youth academy during the 2005–06 season. She subsequently joined RCD Espanyol Femení and made her senior top-flight debut for the club in 2010 at age 16, helping the team reach the 2010–11 Copa de la Reina final. In July 2011 she transferred to Levante UD Femenino, scoring 15 goals in 34 appearances that season. In 2013 Putellas began studying business administration at the Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona but later took a break from her studies to focus on professional football.

Club career

In 2012 Putellas rejoined FC Barcelona and spent the next 14 seasons with the club, making 508 official appearances and scoring 232 goals to become the all-time leading female goal scorer in the team’s history. She captained Barcelona to a continental treble (winning the domestic league, main national cup competition, and main continental league championship in a single season) in the 2020–21 season and continental quadruples (achieving a continental treble and winning the secondary domestic cup or its equivalent) in the 2023–24 and 2025–26 seasons. In July 2022 Putellas ruptured the ACL in her left knee, undergoing surgery and 10 months of rehabilitation before returning in April 2023. In her final Barcelona season in 2025–26, she recorded 26 goals and 15 assists across 53 matches, earning her second UEFA Women’s Champions League Player of the Season award. In July 2026 Putellas signed a three-year contract with the London City Lionesses and made her debut for the English club in September.

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International career

Putellas represented Spain at youth levels, winning the UEFA European Women’s Under-17 Championship in 2010 and 2011, and played for the team that finished third at the 2010 FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup. She made 20 appearances and scored 13 goals for Spain’s under-19 team. Putellas made her senior debut for Spain in June 2013 against Denmark and scored her first senior international goal in a 3–2 win against England at the UEFA Women’s European Championship (Euro) 2013. In July 2022 she made her 100th appearance for the national team and became the most-capped player in the history of the Spanish women’s team. She has made more than 140 senior appearances and scored more than 40 international goals.

She was an outspoken supporter of the group of Spanish women’s team footballers, later known as Las 15 (“the 15”), who in September 2022 declared themselves unavailable for national team selection to protest against the hostile environment that Jorge Vilda, head coach at the time, had allegedly created. She also acted as a mediator to help resolve the dispute between the country’s football governing body, the Real Federación Española de Fútbol (RFEF; Spanish: Royal Spanish Football Federation), and Las 15.

Putellas featured in all seven matches during Spain’s title-winning campaign at the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup. She was one of the 81 players, including the 23 members of the World Cup-winning squad, who subsequently refused to play for the national team after Luis Rubiales, then the RFEF president, kissed Spanish player Jenni Hermoso on the lips during the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup medal ceremony. Hermoso later said she had not consented to the kiss. The slogan #SeAcabó (Spanish: “That’s enough”), which Putellas used in a post in support of Hermoso, became synonymous with the movement for gender equality in Spanish women’s football. She also spearheaded the players’ subsequent negotiations with the RFEF to resolve the boycott and was one of three players (along with teammates Irene Paredes and Misa Rodríguez) who testified in the case against Rubiales.

FIFA suspended Rubiales, who resigned as RFEF president in September 2023. In October 2023 FIFA banned Rubiales from taking part in any football-related activity at the national and international level for three years. Rubiales was found guilty of sexual assault and fined €10,800 (about $11,200) in February 2025; however, he was acquitted of the charge of attempting to coerce Hermoso to say that the kiss had been consensual.

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Putellas played a significant role in the Spanish team’s 2024 and 2025 UEFA Women’s Nations League titles, being named the Player of the Finals in 2025, and was part of the team that lost 3–1 in a penalty shoot-out against England after a 1–1 draw in regular time during the final of the UEFA Women’s Euro 2025.