Aitana Bonmatí (Sant Pere de Ribes, 25 years old) is not a football player. Bonmati is football. Football is his entire being, small, muscular, tough and volcanic. She trained this morning, she showered, she ate, she sits down to let Manuela Pane do her makeup. He places his cell phone and a protein supplement at the foot of the mirror. This isn’t football, but he understands that it’s already part of his job. She was a girl who was always in a tracksuit, now she is a celebrity who undergoes a makeup session before being photographed. “I don’t like it, but it’s not my world, my world is sport,” he says as Pane dries his hair. He says he likes Anglo-Saxon pop and Catalan music. English like Post Malone, Ed Sheeran, Coldplay. Catalans like The Tyets, La Pegatina. “Don’t you know The Sticker? It’s rumba.” When it comes to rumba, he hardly listens to classics like El Pescaílla or Peret. “I’m sure I’ve heard some things from Peret…”. He likes the Colombians Morat, a pop band. “Morat with a T,” he clarifies. Because then there’s Morad with a D, this Catalan rapper who has as many fans as there are police problems.
He picks up his cell phone when he wants to make sure about something he mentions. Try to use it in moderation. “It takes a lot of time and is stressful. “Too many entries,” he concludes. Wink.
His face is boyish. Her expressive essence – mouth line, facial tension, intensity of her gaze, strong neck, straight neck – is that of an adult leader. He laughs when asked what he does to relax because he doesn’t have the slightest peace at the moment.
In a few days she will travel to Paris to present the Ballon d’Or – she is the favorite candidate for it – and then hopes to regain control of her time, of the organization that she values so much: ” I am aware that I live from my body and cannot fully spend the day. I need to be able to manage myself.”
Bonmatí wears a vintage Blazer Mid ’77 jacket and sneakers from Nike, as well as a sweater, shirt and pants from Gucci. Caterina Barjau
The make-up artist applies moisturizer with a brush. The brush looks so soft, the cream so fresh. Makes you want to ask for a passport. The champion and MVP of the World Cup in Australia and New Zealand, the current soccer player, did not play with makeup as a child. He says he’s learning. They curl their eyelashes. What’s it called? “I have one, but I don’t know the name,” says Bonmatí. The makeup artist: “Curler.”
Aitana Bonmatí Conca, daughter of a father and mother who are professors of Catalan language and literature, enjoys reading. He says his house looks more like a library than a home. He says “my house” even though it is his parents’ house. She lives like them in Ribes, but her house is different, she lives alone. He is interested in World War II. One of his favorite books is If This Is a Man by Primo Levi, a testament to his imprisonment in Auschwitz, and he is reading Open, the biography written by the writer JR Moehringer about Andre Agassi. Despite the hype she finds herself in, Bonmatí finds time and finishes it. It confuses her: “For so many years I played tennis and hated it. How is it possible?” You don’t understand. She feels challenged by the universal experience of suffering and sacrifice that the path to the top of the sport requires.
They’re done, but she doesn’t like the way her hair is left out and the waves. Pane thinks it looks good. She insists she prefers a ponytail that cleans her face. You do it to them. She is happy. She likes the Nike blouse she wears, it’s transparent. “A bit daring for me, isn’t it?” he says. Order a coffee to recharge your batteries for the photo session. When they bring it to him, he says “Thank you!” very warmly, her face lights up. They hand him a piece of sugar. “No, no, jo sense sucre,” answers Bonmatí, who has transformed his light frame into an optimal machine.
According to the football players’ organization Fifpro, as of July 2018, she is the footballer who has played the most games (242) and the most consecutive games (140) at international level. Rest and nutrition are essential for them. The journalist suggested having breakfast with her in Ribes. They told him no. This morning he got up at eight and had two spelled bread toasts with avocado and Manchego cheese, “dry if possible,” a coffee with oat milk and a yellow kiwi for breakfast. “I usually always do the same thing.”
For Bonmatí, food is energy. As a child, I would leave the house on weekend mornings and play in the street until dark. He took a sandwich. He can’t remember what it was, he didn’t have a favorite snack. “It wasn’t the important thing. “The only important thing was to take the ball,” she remembers, because in fact the girl Aitana wasn’t a girl either, the girl Aitana was football. The function of the sandwich was limited to allowing her to regain her strength to run more, make more passes, steal more balls, go harder in collisions, be more delicate on the walls, more electric in the dribble be to compete and win.
And to fight. In her book “United We Are Stronger” (2022), she says that she was “cold and hard” as a child. Because it’s called? After the photos are taken, he replies, already sitting on the visitor’s bench at the Johan Cruyff Stadium: “My childhood was not easy because I was the only girl in a man’s world, and the fights, the insults that I received I think I kept it to myself, no. I was able to get it out and just put a shell on.”
—Sometimes we fought.
—Sometimes it wasn’t usual. The usual thing was insults.
– They had you fried.
-Quite.
Rie Bonmatí, relaxed during the makeup session, took the photos well and remains open and generous as she carries a lot of fatigue with her.
“If talent doesn’t go hand in hand with discipline, you won’t be a world leader,” Aitana Bonmatí. The soccer player wears a coat and pants from MM6 Maison Margiela and a T-shirt and Dunk Low sneakers from Nike. Caterina Barjau
Before the interview, we asked two young people who have the potential to become great players about this football star. Vicky López (17 years old) trains with her in Barcelona and says it is “a joy” to watch her play. He defines them as “very competitive and ambitious.” Cristina Librán (17 years old) plays for Madrid CFF and dreams of getting closer to the level of Bonmatí. He says she is “very hardworking, consistent and ambitious.” For her, the goal she scored against Costa Rica at the World Cup is formative for her: “She receives it in the penalty area, takes a ball from behind and scores the goal with her left foot.” It was difficult to get out of this preferred position action because I was surrounded by a lot of players.” Bonmatí’s art lies in the mastery of space and time. The most important part of what he does happens in his head, a 360-degree processor of possibilities, like his childhood idol Xavi Hernández. During the World Cup, Pep Guardiola said he was “in love” with Bonmatí’s football. It reminded him of Iniesta. Perhaps it would be appropriate to understand her game as a mix of both, as suggested by Santiago Segurola, a journalist who has followed her closely: “Iniesta has to move very well, with skill and depth, and Xavi has control of that Game.” . It’s pure Barça.”
Andrés Iniesta writes by message: “I am proud that Guardiola compares me today with the best player in the world.” The prodigy from Fuentealbilla (Albacete), one of the protagonists of the majestic years of Guardiola’s Barcelona and author of the goal that gave Spain its first World Cup, says of Bonmatí: “What would stand out most is his development: he has turned away from the world.” From a good team player to an increasingly leading role to the point where he is currently together with Alexia Putellas and other great players who lead the national team and Barça.” He emphasizes his technical quality, his speed, his ability, his sense of purpose and “his great winning mentality.”
Lluís Cortés is the coach with whom Bonmatí won Barcelona’s first Champions League (2021). Since she has no connection to the club, he defines her as “an electric player, capable of breaking the rhythm of the game at any time.” He had met her at a very young age in the youth team of the Catalan team and she had a tendency to get angry. “He had a tantrum that was difficult for him to deal with. And integrating into the first team was difficult for him because of his shyness and because it is difficult to reach a first team when you are young but determined to be important.”
His former coach emphasizes one word: ambition. The ambition of Aitana Bonmatí.
—What is ambition?
“The desire to be the best in everything, the desire to improve every day and reach the top in all areas,” answers the footballer.
-Where does it come from?
-From my.
-But from where?
– I never asked myself that. I’ve always been very ambitious, very driven and victorious, right? From an early age. I don’t know, I would tell you that it doesn’t come from my family, they have many virtues but they are not competitive and certainly not in sports.
Aitana Bonmatí Conca is so named because her mother and father allowed their daughter to name Aitana Bonmatí Conca. To achieve this, they didn’t have to overcome strong defenses or make brilliant shots. They had to face a tougher rival called legislation. His family and other families were part of a movement that led to a change in the law that allowed the mother’s last name to be put first. That’s why she’s first called Bonmatí, like her mother Rosa, and then Conca, like her father Vicent.
Imma Mayol was the regional representative of the Initiative for Catalunya Verds, which channeled Rosa’s claim. He says that until a few days ago he did not know that Aitana was the daughter of this Rosa Bonmatí. She would like to see her mother again: “Let’s see if they are busy now that the soufflé is over.”
—In your book you write: “Talent is just one factor, subject to work and discipline.”
—If talent doesn’t go hand in hand with discipline, you won’t become a world leader.
– “I don’t allow myself to fail.” Too demanding?
“Yes, but over the years I have learned not to be so harsh and to understand that you are not perfect and that sometimes mistakes lead to improvement.
—-PICTURE—- Aitana Bonmatí, as a child, with the jersey of her first team, Club Deportiu Ribes. Aitana Bonma’s personal archive
If the predictions come true, she will receive the Ballon d’Or in Paris this Monday, October 30, becoming the third Spaniard to do so after Luis Suárez and Alexia Putellas. This year, Bonmatí won the World Cup, Champions League, League and Super Cup and was MVP of the World Cup, MVP of the Champions League, MVP of the Super Cup Final and UEFA Best Player of the Year. At least I should be happy. “I don’t know, it’s insatiable,” replies Cristian Martín together with Ignasi Cardó, his representative.
Agassi writes in Open that his coach, Brad Gilbert, The man who saved his career told him: “You always try to be perfect and you always fail, and that destroys your mind.” Bonmatí knows the double-edged side of perfectionism. He treats it with the psychologists at his club and in private therapy. “I’m rarely satisfied with my games because I always want more, but I do better every time. I still suffer, but not as much as before. “I allow myself to be human and I allow myself to fail.”
At the last World Cup, he spoke to Mayca Jiménez, a journalist from Relevo, after winning the game that secured them a place in the final. There were still a few days until the final and Jiménez asked him if they would celebrate that evening. “There is no celebration,” was the response, followed by the need to get eight hours of sleep and further comments on essential guidelines that should not be skipped, even that night. Jiménez emphasizes his courage in coming forward. When Japan beat them in the group stage of the World Cup, Bonmatí spoke to all the media he wanted, Spanish, foreign, in good English. He promised that they would learn from the defeat. He said, “I apologize.”
“Ambition means wanting to be the best,” says Bonmatí, wearing an Acne Studios jacket; Phoenix fleece sweatshirt and Swoosh hat, all from Nike, and Louis Vuitton pants. Caterina Barjau
They learned from defeat. They won the World Cup. The second World Cup that Spain wins since 2010 in South Africa. And then. So.
—Do we need to talk about the kiss again?
– I don’t want to talk about that anymore.
Aitana Bonmatí is no longer relaxed. This was her when she was doing her makeup, and this was her during the interview, until now her voice becomes tense and her gaze becomes shielded.
The day before, Álvaro Morata had said that the men’s team “helps the women’s team a lot…” and when he read him the quote, he stopped without finishing it.
“I don’t want to talk about that either because I’m very tired.” I’ve done a lot of interviews like this and I think we have to appreciate everything we do and put the controversies aside.
The good flow of the beauty session, the Café Sense Sucre, the playfulness of the fashionable clothes, the poses for the photographer Caterina Barjau, the things that had helped her stay in a good mood that autumn afternoon, all of that has disappeared. and suddenly the weight of weeks of controversy drags her down, suddenly this whirlpool drags her down. Bonmatí is too saturated to answer the usual questions about the scandal that has rocked the Spanish football federation and cost the job of its president Luis Rubiales, who is accused of kissing Jenni Hermoso during the handover of the World Cup. In addition to the weeks of media storms and the constant internal hustle and bustle between the players, the Higher Sports Council and the Association, I had a single week’s vacation three days before, continued training and tried to take 100% care of myself on a program that this political Earthquake condensed into 50 minutes, with Bonmatí as the main interviewee. And this afternoon he can’t take it anymore.
She answers other questions, although she is a little depressed after bringing up the topic again.
She says she has seen women’s football grow significantly, but points out there is still plenty of room for growth. “This is the beginning. The beginning,” he says. She would rather not say anything about what is missing in women’s football, out of so many that she has to say. Although he mentions the apparent “precariousness” of some F-League fields, he reflects on the language. Should we continue to say women’s football? He doesn’t believe it and suggests: “Either specify male or female whenever football is said, or don’t specify and understand it according to the context.” She praises Barça’s vision in betting on non-hegemonic sporting areas and describes herself as a “convinced culé “, although she had an offer from Olympique de Lyon in 2021 that made her think. “Important decisions shouldn’t be made overnight. I like to weigh up all the options,” he explains. In December 2021 it was extended until 2025.
He has regained his tone somewhat. When asked what he thinks about the cliché that a football player shouldn’t talk about politics, he replies that freedom of expression is the same for someone who works in a company, in a hospital or on a football team. However, today is not the day you want to train it the most. It’s over. Aitana Bonmatí needs to rest.
CREDITS
Styling by Juan Cebrián
Make-up and hairdresser Manuela Pane (Kasteel Artist Management) for Dior and Livingproof.
Produced by Cristina Serrano
Photo assistant Claudia Sauret
Styling assistant Paula Alcalde
Aitana Bonmatí wears a Chill Knit T-shirt from Nike. Caterina Barjau
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