Spain midfielder Alexia Putellas has claimed the Ballon d’Or Feminin for a record-equalling third time, ensuring the award stays with a Spanish player for a sixth year running.
At 32, Putellas captained Barcelona to Champions League success as part of a quadruple in 2025-26, before she moved to Women’s Super League (WSL) club London City Lionesses in July.
She now stands alongside Spain team-mate Aitana Bonmati on three Ballon d’Or Feminin titles – her former Barcelona colleague took the award in 2023, 2024 and 2025, following Putellas’ wins in 2021 and 2022.
The last six Ballons d’Or have gone to the Spanish duo, with Norway’s Ada Hegerberg (2018) and Megan Rapinoe of the United States (2019) the only non-Spaniards to take the prize.
Putellas’ latest triumph marks a remarkable return to the summit of world football, having suffered a career-threatening anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury in 2022.
“All the boys and girls around the world – if you love football and if you want to play football, play football. It doesn’t matter if you’re a boy or if you’re a girl,” Putellas said.
“Doesn’t matter where you come from. Don’t listen if someone tells you, you can’t do it. Believe in yourself.”
She received the most votes from an international panel of journalists in Fifa’s top-50 ranked countries, with Barcelona striker Ewa Pajor finishing second and Manchester City forward Khadija Shaw third.
In the meantime, England captain Harry Kane claimed the men’s Ballon d’Or, becoming the first English player to win it since Michael Owen in 2001.
Although Barcelona are always heavy favourites to win the three competitions available in Spain, Putellas’ performances last season demonstrated that she remains among the world’s elite.
Known as ‘La Reina’ – which means the queen – Putellas scored 21 goals and provided 13 assists across all competitions, placing her third and second respectively among players in Europe’s top five leagues.
Seven of those goals came in the Women’s Champions League, as Barcelona secured a fourth continental title in six seasons.
Only Pernille Harder (eight), Alessia Russo (nine) and Ewa Pajor (11) scored more, and all three are strikers by trade.
Yet Putellas’ contribution to Barcelona’s attacking play extended well beyond scoring goals herself.
In Liga F – which Barcelona won for a seventh consecutive season – she finished joint-sixth for assists (seven) and fourth for open-play chances created (40).
Across Europe’s top five leagues, only Claudia Pina (199), Vicky Lopez (183) and Georgia Stanway (168) recorded more sequence involvements ending in an open-play shot than Putellas (151).
In all competitions, she created more chances (89, 19 of them big chances) and completed more passes ending in the final third (965) than any other player in Liga F, the Champions League, Copa de la Reina and Supercopa de Espana.
In last season’s Champions League, only Bayern Munich’s Klara Buhl created as many chances as Putellas (36), the highest tally by a player in a single edition of the competition since Caroline Graham Hansen in 2021-22 (38).
Putellas was born and raised in the Catalan municipality of Mollet del Valles, roughly 12 miles north-east of Barcelona.
She started playing football in the street and soon became a Barcelona fan and a regular at Camp Nou.
With matches always on the TV at home, former Spain and Barcelona star Andres Iniesta and the Brazilian pair Rivaldo and Ronaldinho quickly became her idols.
After attending a summer football camp run by Xavi and playing for local side CE Sabadell, Putellas spent a year at La Masia, Barcelona’s renowned youth academy.
Following the disbandment of her girls team, she had spells at Espanyol and Levante before eventually returning to Barca in 2012.
That marked the beginning of a 14-year career with her childhood club, during which she won 38 trophies, including 10 league titles and four European cups.
However, after winning the Ballon d’Or for the first time in 2021, one of the hardest moments of Putellas’ career arrived when she suffered an ACL injury on the eve of Euro 2022, ruling her out of the tournament.
Although she retained the Ballon d’Or later that year, it took her some time to get back to her best level. Playing only a bit-part role in Spain’s triumphant 2023 World Cup campaign would have stung.
After finding the net in the 2024 Champions League final and building on that form the following season, she carried much of Barcelona’s creative load in 2025-26 while Aitana Bonmati was sidelined for five months with injury, and she finished the campaign as a quadruple winner.
As if that were not enough, the midfielder struck twice in a 4-0 rout of England in June, a result that booked Spain’s spot at the 2027 World Cup at the Lionesses’ expense.
With her Barcelona contract running out and eager for a new challenge, Putellas decided to leave the club where she had grown up. She was devastated, and so were her fans.
She received several offers from England, Mexico and the United States, but in July she signed up for the ambitious project of US billionaire Michelle Kang at London City Lionesses.
“I’m just always looking forward to better things and that’s why I’m here too, because I always need to be moving as a person and a player,” Putellas told BBC’s Women’s Football Weekly podcast in August.
With three goals and one assist in seven WSL appearances for her new club, Putellas is clearly still worthy of her nickname.
