Bonmati takes house Girls’s Ballon d’Or after serving to Spain win World Cup

Aitana Bonmati, who powered Spain to its first-ever Girls’s World Cup in August, received the Ballon d’Or Feminin on Monday.

The 25-year-old dethrones Spanish compatriot and Barcelona teammate Alexia Putellas, who received consecutive Ballons d’Or earlier than rupturing her ACL in July 2022.

Named the World Cup’s greatest participant, Bonmati scored three targets and laid on two assists throughout Spain’s triumphant marketing campaign in Australia and New Zealand.

The artistic midfielder additionally took house the UEFA Girls’s Participant of the Yr award, beating out Australia’s Sam Kerr and Spain’s Olga Carmona, who scored the one purpose within the World Cup closing in opposition to England.

However Bonmati had already established herself as top-of-the-line gamers within the ladies’s sport earlier than the World Cup kicked off. Within the absence of Putellas, who missed the vast majority of the 2022-23 season, Bonmati helped Barcelona win the Girls’s Champions League with 5 targets and eight assists within the competitors.

Aitana is simply the fourth girl to win the Ballon d’Or after Ada Hegerberg, Megan Rapinoe, and Putellas. Not one of the earlier recipients have been shortlisted this yr.

Kerr, who missed a piece of the World Cup via damage, and Spanish teammate Salma Paralluelo completed second and third in voting. Barcelona ahead Fridolina Rolfo and Manchester United and England goalkeeper Mary Earps ended up fourth and fifth.