She was about to live the most important night of her career, but Aitana Bonmatí never stops thinking about football. He arrived in Paris keeping in mind that the next day he had a match with the Spanish team in Zurich, so no celebrations, he had to go to sleep early and rest. But he enjoyed it. There was time before the doors of the Theater du Chatelet opened to savor every minute with their loved ones.
At 2:15 p.m. he landed in a cold and rainy Paris with Salma Paralluelo on the flight chartered by the national team and went to the Intercontinental Hotel in the French capital. There, her parents, Rosa and Vicent, were waiting for her, not very frequent in public life, but they did not want to miss such a special moment for her daughter. There were also her closest friends and the people on her team. “She was able to enjoy it,” they say from her surroundings. She had quality time with her people while she distracted the butterflies that were beginning to flutter around her stomach.
As the time approached, the nerves grew. She hid them by walking determinedly on the red carpet, wearing a black haute couture dress and a dazzling smile. She nervously touched her hair as she entered the stage with Gündogan and she looked for Alba Redondo to help her walk down the stairs with her heels to her seat. In the stalls she wiped the sweat from her palms while she waited for her name to be announced. Aitana's habitat is the green grass, not a red carpet: "I feel more comfortable playing soccer than talking, because I am not used to these large stages," she confessed before acknowledging that she had gone "weeks without sleep" due to to the nerves.
The FC Barcelona midfielder had been preparing for her big day for a long time: the dress, the speech... everything was carefully chosen by Aitana herself. The wardrobe was something that especially concerned him and although she took advice, he was very clear that he did not want to lose his identity. “She wanted to look in the mirror and continue being Aitana, feeling good and respecting her identity,” explain those who have accompanied her in the process. Something that she undoubtedly achieved with that black Versace, very natural makeup and a bun that gave her the air of a dancer.
He also respected its essence with the speech he gave at the Chatelet. “He was very clear about it, he wanted it to be in three languages and he knew which people he wanted to dedicate it to and the values he wanted to transmit with his words,” he says.
The gala went by very quickly. Since her name was announced at the Chatelet at 10:05 p.m., everything accelerated. Speech, press conference, photographs, interviews on the red carpet... he barely had ten minutes for his team, which he took advantage of to immortalize himself with them along with the Ballon d'Or, before they left with the FC Barcelona expedition back to the Catalan capital. They will have time to talk about this historic night when everything calms down with a drink in Sant Pere de Ribes, next to the mural that Barça gave yesterday to Aitana Bonmatí in his hometown. A work by the Catalan urban artist Fert that pays tribute to the soccer player in which you can see a current image of her and one of her when she was a child along with a motto very much hers: 'Win or learn, never lose.'
The new Ballon d'Or winner spent the night in Paris, along with Salma Paralluelo, third in the voting, and yesterday, early in the morning, both got on a plane to Zurich. Because yes, one more year, France Football placed the gala in the middle of an international break that meant that only seven of the twenty nominees could attend: the five Blaugrana, Alba Redondo (Levante) and Amanda Ilestedt (Arsenal).
Before eleven in the morning they were already at the Spanish team's concentration hotel in Zurich. Upon their arrival they were greeted by coach Montse Tomé, who congratulated them and hugged Aitana. “Did you enjoy it?” she asked him. “Yes, and I was nervous too,” the Blaugrana responded smiling. Since Monday, the best player in the world.
