After years of good work at the Barça club, betting on professionalising the women’s team, Barça is now celebrating having a group of players, led by Putellas, ready to continue making history. Because, like the Golden Ball, The Best is an individual trophy, but football is a collective sport and the Catalan team has a team that has not lost its hunger. In fact, Alexia has beaten Jennifer Hermoso, who also scored 51 goals last year, and Chelsea player Sam Kerr, a Champions League finalist and top scorer in the English league. “2021 was perfect. We won the Champions League and we hope to repeat it this year. It’s a prize shared with the whole team,” said the winner, who received the award from Sergio Busquets, captain of the Barça men’s, as the gala was held online.
Without any Barça in the ideal eleven
Lluís Cortés, the current coach of Ukraine, chose to receive the award as the best coach of a women’s team last year for his work at the helm of Barça, but the surprise jumped: the winner was Emma Hayes, coach of the Chelsea. The Briton has also prevailed over Sarina Weigman, a former Netherlands coach who currently heads the England national team. The choice by the jury is not surprising, because Barça, with Cortés on the bench, thrashed Hayes’ team in the Champions League final. Equally surprising, there were no Barça players in last season’s FIFA ideal eleven.
Lewandowski is still The Best
The gala also awarded Bayern Munich’s Robert Lewandowski The Best, who won it last year. The Pole has beaten Leo Messi, now at PSG, and Liverpool player Mohamed Salah. The award for best coach went to Chelsea’s Tomas Tuchel, the reigning Champions League champions. He has beaten Manchester City coach Pep Guardiola and Italy’s European Cup champions Robert Mancini. For his part, Cristiano Ronaldo has received a special distinction for the records he has broken this year with Portugal, including being the player with the most calls with a European team and the top scorer on the national team scale, with 115 goals.
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