Arsenal Win Champions League: Aitana Bonmati is the best in the world but it was not enough for Barcelona in Lisbon | Football news

It was Arsenal’s moment, but the eye was attracted to the player in a Barcelona shirt, the day of which was supposed to be. Aitana Bonmati is the exceptional interpreter of the women’s match, but this time, the Champions League trophy had escaped him.

She was in tears on the final whistle, leaning, her head in her hands, beaten. Bonmati was consoled by Leah Williamson, but several minutes passed before her own teammates dared to approach her. It was a very personal sorrow in a very public setting.

As for an age, Bonmati cut into the penalty box that Barcelona had struggled to penetrate for the previous 90 minutes and more. A lonely figure, it was the last to recover the medal and the last to applaud while Arsenal celebrated.

While other players huddled together or looked away, Bonmati forced himself to look, as if it was his penance. She repeated this by also saluting fans. It lasted more than half an hour all. Maybe these things cut themselves differently for adults.

There was a hug with his mother and there is still time for an animated tactical discussion with the technical director of Barcelona Marc Vives. Arsenal paraded the trophy, but Bonmati was still treating, always trying to calculate the way this game had not been folded in its own will.

It had to be a foreign feeling for a foreigner of a player. Bonmati had won three of the previous four finals of the Champions League with Barcelona, ​​the match of the match in two of them. A landslide winner of the last two golden balls, a three events would still not be a surprise.

This child from Masia, the one who carries the shirt n ° 14 in tribute to Johan Cruyff, counts Xavi Hernandez among his many admirers. Pep Guardiola said that she was the player who reminded her Andres Iniesta – and that the comparison is a compliment for Iniesta.

In Lisbon, while the big and the good of the game met for the centerpiece of Europe, the other players spoke in reverential terms of his genius. And there are no doubts that it is a genius. The technique is out of comparison. Bonmati slides. But there is more here.

Addressing Tatiana Pinto from Atletico Madrid, winner of 115 caps for Portugal, she tries to explain. “It is how intelligent she is and how much it is to move in space,” explains Pinto Sky Sports. “It is how it is available to receive the ball.” The Brazilian legend Tamires agrees.

“Yeah, I think it’s his constant movement,” says Tamires Sky Sports. “It is so difficult for the person who must mark it to catch it because they always think in advance on the game and they always head to the right space all the time.”

‘She has this magic’

A conversation with the former favorite of the Arsenal Anita Asante turned out to be particularly enlightening. Asante is a coach now and decomposes in an expert way which makes Bonmati so special. “In England, we often tell hard work to work beyond possession,” she said Sky Sports.

“We do not often rehash the game in the same way in terms of possession. Players work just as difficult to get on the ball, stay on the ball and be an option or create a space for others. For me, it’s difficult work. To do it constantly, it’s a very difficult job.

“Bonmati is always thinking about how to challenge the decision-making of the opposition player. In what spaces I am dragging this player? She might not even be involved in the first phase, but she sees the game in front of others. It is her game intelligence.

“And when she receives the ball, she still scans when you add her technical skills, she is able to receive under pressure and escape this pressure with ease. It is a massive technical skill to be able to do it and be comfortable doing so.

“To be quite comfortable getting out of trouble, being locked up but getting out of it, she has this exhausist. This kind of spring to move away from people in restricted spaces, to draw a player to the ball and then move away. This is what she has. She has this magic.”

Rest in their best

And yet, against a fiery arsenal side, the one who defended himself resolutely and attacked the spaces behind the defense of Barcelona, ​​none of this has proven him. Bonmati was held at his principles, trusted the team, but there was always an arsenal body on the way.

They blocked three of her shots, while the many chances she created directly for others were missed. Much more of his incentives have shaped saved or wasted openings. Bonmati is a team player. She needed her team to play better than that.

Alexia Putellas was well below her best. At 65 minutes away, Bonmati showed up for the ball, but Caroline Graham Hansen opted for an absurd angle. On the 82, Bonmati dug the ball intelligently in Ona Batle’s way but she made a mess of the cross.

Sometimes the scalpel is not as effective as the hammer. And in addition, it was Beth Mead who provided the moment of key subtlety from the game to the other end, with this inverted pass to Stina Blackstenius finishing Barcelona and the quadruple dream of Bonmati.

At the age of 27, there will be many more moments for the best player in the world to reaffirm his grip on the female game. The Copa de la Reina is a fortnight. Spain is the favorites to win Euro 2025 this summer and add this price to the World Cup won in 2023.

In this context, it may be a little strange to focus on his breach rather than on the myriad of wonderful stories among the Arsenal outsiders. But there was something convincing to look at this emotional calculation for an elite athlete.

This is the fascination of football. She was the best in the world when she entered the game and is always clearly the best in the world at the end. But as Arsenal celebrated, Aitana Bonmati, feeling that the weight of responsibility that accompanies his grandeur could only sob.

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