Mapi León will leave Barça after nine seasons

BarcelonaMapi León has decided not to accept Barça's reduced renewal offer and will bring an end to nine years of blaugrana on June 30, according to Rut Vilar in the Catalunya Ràdio podcast Fem Futbol and has been confirmed by this newspaper. The Aragonese center-back – an important piece in Pere Romeu's system – has already communicated the decision to the sports management led by Marc Vivés. Furthermore, according to the newspaper Sport, the footballer will go free to London City of magnate Michele Kang, who also wants to seduce Alexia Putellas. The English team already snatched Jana Fernández and Lucía Corrales from Barça – then paying a transfer fee – last summer.

Mapi León, who will turn 31 next June, arrived at the azulgrana club in the summer of 2017 from Atlético de Madrid. The culé entity then paid €50,000 in what was the first transfer between two Spanish women's clubs in history. During all this time, the center-back has become an indispensable footballer in the heart of the defense, not only for her ability to cover space and defend in open play, but also for her ability to come out with the ball under control. Her extensive trophy cabinet includes eight leagues, seven cups, and three Champions Leagues, and she will seek to add to it with the two finals remaining before the end of the season; the Copa de la Reina and the Champions League.

Over these nine seasons, Mapi León has played more than 300 games in the azulgrana shirt and has scored 23 goals, some of which – like the one at Camp Nou the first time it opened against Real Madrid in 2022 – are still remembered by the culé fans. In recent years, the player has seen the bitterest side of football. In December 2023, she tore the outer meniscus of her right knee in training and was away from the pitch for more than six months. This season, she has also missed two months of competition due to an anterior impingement in her right ankle.

The footballer –much loved by the fans– was also a protagonist with the Spanish national team. The Aragonese was one of the fifteen who resigned from the Spanish national team in 2022 if there were no changes. All of them gradually returned – on the condition that Montse Tomé and Sonia Bermúdez decided to call them up –, but in Mapi León's case, she decided not to return until the end of 2025, three years after everything exploded. This caused her to miss the 2023 World Cup that the Spanish national team won in Australia and New Zealand.

Barça is thinking of Martina

The blue and red club has been working for some time to strengthen the defensive line. One of the names that has recently surfaced is Martina Fernández. The center-back from Ordis was transferred to Everton last July, but Barça retained a buy-back option. According to what ARA has been able to learn, the club would be in negotiations to exercise it and be able to strengthen the defense. A few months ago, she expressed her desire to return to the Catalan club in an interview with this newspaper. "My goal has always been to return to Barça, because it is my dream, it is where I want to end up playing, and I will work to try to achieve it," said the Girona native.

Mapi's departure – along with the anterior cruciate ligament injury that Laia Aleixandri suffered and which will keep her away from the pitch until 2027– weakens the center-back position, where only Irene Paredes, Aïcha Camara, and Marta Torrejón, who also contract ends on June 30, would remain. In parallel, last March Barça announced the signing of Julia Torres, a center-back from Sevilla with future potential. The commitment to young talent is the line to follow by the sports management –headed by Marc Vivés– given the economic obstacles to competing against other European clubs for the most talented and high-profile players.