"I remember when we were trying to get our driver's licenses. We drove around Portugal a bit during a preseason training camp. Maybe it wasn't legal the whole time, but it was a lot of fun," admits Viktor Claesson (Värnamo, Sweden, 1992), captain of Copenhagen, laughing as he prepares to take the reins. reunion with his compatriot Roony BardghjiA promising talent and a star for Denmark's top club for the past five seasons, he's the protagonist of an extraordinary story of precocity and love for Barça. This summer, the young winger realized his lifelong dream: to play for Barça.

"It's a huge source of pride that they're my sisters," acknowledges Natàlia Terré (Barcelona, ​​2001), shortly after leaving the operating room following cruciate ligament surgery. Her sisters, Martina (2002) and Mariona (2004), are the two goalkeepers for the Spanish women's water polo team, the reigning Olympic champions, who debuted on Monday at the European Championships in Portugal with a defeat against Hungary (9-7). Fourteen of the fifteen players are Catalan. Martina, one of the best goalkeepers in the world, wanted to play hockey: "But I couldn't, because there weren't any girls' teams," she says. She had also tried artistic gymnastics. She took up swimming and then water polo: "I only lasted a day as a player because there's a lot of contact. I've always been a goalkeeper thanks to some boy or girl who hit me really hard, and I thought: 'I'm not going back here.' I didn't think it was my sport." And so it was in goal. "I'd rest my feet by the pool so I wouldn't get tired during training," he reveals, laughing. At 23, he already boasts a European gold and silver medal, a World Championship silver and two bronze medals, and an Olympic gold.

"It was an earthquake, a shock, a tremendous reality check," explains journalist Sergio Cortina, reliving Oviedo's fall: from the First and even European divisions to the Third, to being one inch away from disappearing. This Thursday, the Asturian team hosts Barça again, 25 seasons after the last two matches: a 2-3 win for Barça at the Tartiere and a 0-1 loss for Asturias at the Camp Nou, with Carles Rexach in the dugout and Richard Dutruel in goal. Other times. That ordeal led Oviedo to play against teams from neighborhoods in the city or surrounding towns, even on dirt fields turned into mudflats. In 2013, they lost 4-1 to Sporting Gijón's reserve team. In 2014, by 1 to 4.

"When I tell my life, most people don't know what to say. They just stay silent," explains Ricardo Torres (Madrid, 1987), a player for the Spanish national team for the homeless. He has just returned from Oslo (Norway), host of the twentieth edition of the Homeless World Cup. The tournament is held annually with the challenge of changing lives and offering hope and second chances through football. Of working for social inclusion and visibility, and against stigmas and prejudices.

"I felt guilty, but the fear of facing the problem outweighed my motivation to try to fix it. I was trapped in my own head. I remember days waking up, having breakfast, getting dressed to go out to train, and then lying on the couch for hours," says Leo Hayter (London, 2001). On August 16, 2024, he announced his temporary retirement due to depression, at just 23 years old. He had signed for the Ineos team as one of the British riders with the most promise: his trophy cabinet includes an Under-23 Giro d'Italia and a bronze in the Under-23 World Time Trial Championship. "I haven't been cycling in recent months, but I haven't lived either," he said in a letter titled My fightIn November, he posted his first activity on the Strava platform after months without touching the bike: 28.4 kilometers in one hour and eleven minutes, with the text "hat and unfit(fatty and out of shape). A few days ago he won the Catalan Time Trial Championship. It's been 426 days since I last wore my bib. Many, many more since I did a race I was really looking forward to," he wrote on Instagram.

"As much as possible, I will always avoid mentioning this company's name. Every time it comes up, I feel as if an old wound has reopened inside my heart. This name will bring me eternal pain," says sports journalist Payam Younessipour (Tehran, 1982). This forbidden name is that of Germanwigs, the airline that operated Flight 9525 between Barcelona and Düsseldorf ten years ago, which ended in tragedy. Pilot Andreas Lubitz, suffering from depression and on medical leave that he failed to inform the airline, deliberately crashed the plane into the French Alps with 150 people on board.