Alexia Putellas Wins 2 Ballon d’Or in a row

Alexia Putellas has made history as she was crowned, along with Karim Benzema, with the 2022 Ballon d’Or

Alexia Putellas is the first female player to win the Ballon d’Or Féminin for two years in a row. Putellas is a professional Spanish footballer who plays midfielder for Liga F club FC Barcelona. She’s also the captain of the club and Spain’s Women’s national team.

After picking up the award, Putellas thanked her teammates, the staff, the coach, and everyone involved at Barcelona.“I’m happy to be back here and pleased because a year ago I was able to win this prize, and it pushed me to want to be even better.”

Putellas faced competition from Beth Mead and Lucy Bronze for the Euro 2022, who won the competition with England.  Earlier this year, the midfielder suffered a long-term injury, ruling her out of the European Championship. Fans of Putellas commented that if she had not been injured, FC Barcelona could’ve won the Euro.

She’s still out of action but has contributed to the team enough to help Barcelona to a historic Spanish league title. The Catalan club won all 30 matches last term. During this campaign, Putellas scored 18 goals and registered 15 assists.

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Putellas is considered the best contemporary female footballer in the world and one of the greatest of all time. That’s because, at the age of 28, she’s won all major club and individual awards available to a European player.

And, the player has been praised for her role as a winger and a predominantly left-footed player, who played primarily as a forward on the left-win most of her career. Known as the perfect Barcelona midfielder, she has the vision, passing ability, and accuracy that resembles the males of FC Barcelona. She is described as a “role model” for other Barcelona players due to her leadership skill.

But, most of all, Putellas is an example for many women football players and sports players overall. 

On the other hand, Benzema won the men’s award for the first time after leading Real Madrid to the Spanish title and their 14th European Cup. He scored 27 goals in La Liga and became the top scorer in the Champions League with 15. Ten of these goals came to be in the knockout stages, including hat-tricks against Paris Saint-Germain and Chelsea. Benzema is the first French award winner since Zinedine Zidane in 1998.