The family story behind Laia Aleixandri's return to Barça

BarcelonaBarça is already working to regain the Champions League throne next season, and the first moves have not been long in coming. The first signing was a public secret: eight years later, Laia Aleixandri is back wearing the Blaugrana jersey. The 24-year-old defender from Santa Coloma de Gramanet, a Spanish international, arrives as a guaranteed center back. She does so after playing five seasons at Atlético de Madrid—with whom she won two league titles—and three at Manchester City. Despite having secured the center back position for the fourth-placed team in Europe's most competitive women's competition, Aleixandri has waited until her contract with the club expires. citizens so she could return home.

The defender, who can also play as a center or full-back, left the Barça youth system in 2017 to seek out the minutes at Atlético Madrid that, at the time, weren't guaranteed with Barça's first team. A similar case to that of Ona Batlle, a good friend of hers, with whom she shared a flat for a time in Manchester, when one played for City and the other for United. Now she's returning to replace Ingrid Engen and to compete for a place in the starting eleven, where the starting center-back pairing for the season has been Irene Paredes and Mapi León. Called up to play in the European Championship, she married Moisés Trillo last weekend, a graduate in physical activity and sports sciences from the European University of Madrid and founder of BePlayer (Team YouFirst), one of the leading agencies for women's football.

Laia Aleixandri's return to Barça is "the fulfillment of a dream." That's how Xavi, her father, and Gemma, her sister, feel at ARA. In Manchester, the club provided them with tickets to see her once a month, but when she left for Atlético Madrid at 16, it was more difficult to go, especially in the first year, although the family still tried to go often. "Now we know that at least every two weeks, we'll be able to see her 30 minutes from home. Plus, she'll be living close to us," says Xavi from the family home in Santa Coloma de Gramenet. Aleixandri left Barcelona before she was even of legal age, accepting an offer from Atlético Madrid, where she spent a "very difficult" first year.

Laia Aleixandri's journey away from Barça

That first season away from home, she played little and also suffered an injury to the radius of her right hand. "She had to take the university entrance exams with her left hand!" her father recalls. "We've always told her that studies are non-negotiable." Laia studies marketing remotely—to combine it with playing professional football—and Gemma studies marketing, advertising, and public relations in person in Barcelona. As children, the two often argued, but Gemma, who is four years younger, missed her a lot when she left home when she was 12. Now they maintain an excellent relationship and have a non-negotiable plan that they both love to share: going to Port Aventura.

The whole family celebrates his return to Barça. "At home, we're Barça fans, and we've always followed Barça," explains Xavi. Both Laia and Gemma have been Barça members almost since the day they were born because their aunt Mireia gave them membership cards for the club they love. Sports are also common at home: Gemma, like her father, plays basketball (at CB Prat), and Laia started playing soccer as a child. While Gemma preferred to play other things, Laia always wanted a ball nearby. In fact, at the age of three, she went to Camp Nou with her father for the first time: "He fell in love quickly, and we went to the stadium more often. I also remember him telling me that there were a lot of swear words in soccer!"

The first steps in Santa Coloma

From kicking the ball around the square, at the age of six, she would move on to playing for her first team, Arrabal-Calaf de Santa Coloma. The coach, Toni Carmona, was one of the parents at the school Laia attended. She was the only girl on the team. Two seasons later, the call from Sant Gabriel came when a visitor came to see a teammate and asked for Xavi, as fate would have it, the girl wearing the number six. "She's my daughter," he replied.

At Sant Gabriel, where she alternated between center back and midfielder positions, she played in the top categories. She was also shortly called up to the youth ranks of the Catalan national team. "This is when I saw things were starting to get serious," Gemma recalls. She was there from the ages of 8 to 12, until a coach decided he didn't see a girl playing on his team. "We don't hold any grudges. We were fine at Sant Gabriel, but there was also the option of going to Barça and Espanyol," Xavi explains.

She spent four years in the Barça youth system (from 12 to 16) until she made the jump to Atlético Madrid to seek playing time at the highest level. Then came the interest of City, where she was a key player in defense and wore the captain's armband on several occasions, especially this season following the injury to the experienced Alex Greenwood. She is also a starter for the Spanish national team.

"I can't be impartial, but I think that with Laia, Barça is signing a very technical center back, with a great ability to get out with both feet and a great ability to filter through passes; who anticipates and positions herself very well, and has excellent aerial play. If I think she can improve on anything, it's her long crossing," explains a proud father. The dream of that little girl who wrote on a school card that she wanted to be a soccer player or a cartoonist when she grew up will continue at home, at Barça, at her Barça.