Background and career
Alèxia Putellas i Segura (born 4 February 1994), often known simply as Alexia, is a Spanish professional footballer from Catalonia who plays as a midfielder or forward for the Women's Super League club London City Lionesses and the Spain women's national team. She previously played for the clubs Espanyol, Levante, and Barcelona, and has also played for the Catalonia women's national team. She has won all the major club awards and most of the individual awards available to a European player, and is widely regarded as one of the greatest female footballers of all time.
Putellas started her youth career at CE Sabadell, passing through Barcelona before she moved to Espanyol, where she played most of her youth football. After a year at Levante she returned to Barcelona in 2012, where she won eight league titles, eight Copas de la Reina, four Supercopa de España Femenina (Spanish Women's Super Cup) and four UEFA Women's Champions League trophies. In Barcelona's 2020–21 season, she played an essential role as her team won the Champions League as well as the resulting continental treble, both for the first time in their history. Putellas then went on to win the UEFA Women's Player of the Year Award, the Ballon d'Or Féminin, and The Best FIFA Women's Player in 2021, becoming the first player to win all three in the same year. In 2022, despite missing the UEFA Women's Euro 2022 due to an ACL injury, she won all three awards again, becoming the first woman to win any of them in consecutive years. Barcelona won the league and Champions League again in 2022–23, though Putellas was largely absent with the injury, before taking the continental quadruple in 2023–24. In her final season with the club in 2025–26, Putellas again captained Barcelona to a continental quadruple, once again winning the Ballon d'Or.
On the international stage, Putellas had success with Spain's youth national teams, winning two UEFA Women's U-17 Euros (in 2010 and 2011) as well as finishing third in the 2010 FIFA U-17 Women's World Cup and second in the 2012 UEFA Women's U-19 Euro. She made her debut for Spain's senior national team for the 2013 UEFA Women's Euro, and has since featured in four other major international competitions with the team: Spain's FIFA Women's World Cup debut in 2015, the 2017 Euro, the 2019 World Cup and the 2023 World Cup that Spain won. She captained Spain during the 2023–24 UEFA Women's Nations League, which they also won.
Putellas left Barcelona having made 508 appearances, the second-most all-time appearances for the women's team behind former left-back Melanie Serrano, and as their all-time top goalscorer with 232 goals. As of 2026, she is the record holder for most Spain appearances, having surpassed Marta Torrejón's previous record of 90 caps in 2021, and became the first player to make over 100 appearances for the Spain women's team, which she achieved in 2022.
Alèxia Putellas i Segura was born on 4 February 1994, to Jaume Putellas Rota and Elisabet "Eli" Segura Sabaté in Mollet del Vallès, a municipality in the province of Barcelona. She has a younger sister, Alba. Putellas has been a supporter of FC Barcelona since her early childhood and would travel with the penya of Mollet del Vallès to watch matches at the Camp Nou with her father. She would also watch Barcelona matches at a local bar, La Bolera, with her family; she has said that her family have always been fanatic supporters of the club, with the exception of a cousin who supports Real Madrid. As of 2021, Putellas was still a member of the Mollet penya. In her youth, Putellas idolised male footballers Andrés Iniesta, Rivaldo, and Ronaldinho, who all played for Barcelona, as well as female footballer Louisa Nécib, who played for Olympique Lyonnais. Iniesta has returned the idolatry, calling Putellas a role model and saying she encapsulates the values of FC Barcelona.
Born into a basketball-playing family, Putellas took part in basketball as well as roller hockey, tennis, and folk dance, as a child. She began playing football at school, and attended football camps run by Xavi for two summers, before joining a club in 2001 at seven years old. Her mother allowed her to join a football team on the condition she stop playing at school, though she continued. Putellas interpreted her mother's request as a reflection of machismo, specifically prejudice towards girls playing football, in society, saying that her family themselves always accepted her ambitions. A mature and reserved but not shy child, Putellas showed leadership qualities from a young age. She enjoyed football at school, where she was embraced, but still did not think she could have a football career due to being female. Putellas' first club was the local CF Mollet UE boys' team; she only had three training sessions there, leaving as she did not like the atmosphere and soon after joining the Sabadell girls' team.
In 2013, Putellas began studying business administration and management at the Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona, later taking a break from her studies to focus on football. She had decided to study for a degree due to a lack of professionalism in Spanish women's football; Barcelona Femení became professional in 2015.
When she was seven, Putellas began playing for Sabadell, being enrolled through a family friend who played for the club; the team would not accept players younger than eight, with Putellas' family initially lying about her age so she could join. It is here she first played with future Barcelona teammates Vicky Losada and Marta Corredera. Despite being several years younger than some of her Sabadell teammates, Putellas was made one of the team captains. She was smaller and weaker than other players, and could not shoot from distance, things which frustrated her. Sports media wrote that Putellas found success at this age due to her ability to find "space where there is none" even as a child. Sabadell was the only nearby club that had a women's section but, though the women's team flourished during the period Putellas was with them and the staff of the girls' team pushed to develop, the girls' team was not a priority. It was difficult for Putellas and her family to manage her training there as a child, but by 2004 she was playing football religiously.
In 2005, Putellas spent a year in a Barcelona girls' youth team as part of La Masia. With the team, Putellas won the youth editions of the 2005 Copa Catalunya and the league. Joining Barcelona was her dream, but she had to leave when the women's system was restructured and there was no team for her age group; Xavi Llorens, who became manager in 2006, reflected that he always expected Putellas to return, "it was just a matter of waiting for the right time". Putellas, like many of the displaced players, joined Espanyol, the other club in Barcelona.
Putellas joined the Espanyol girls' team when she was twelve, at a time when Espanyol was one of the dominant forces in Spanish women's football, "with an incredibly prolific academy", and Barcelona was not. Through the youth and senior teams she played alongside Marta Torrejón and Andrea Pereira, who would both later become her teammates at Barcelona. In 2007, the Espanyol Cadet team won the youth Copa Catalunya, also taking the league title in 2008 at the end of the season. Putellas then began appearing for the women's Espanyol B team from the age of 14 in 2008, and trained and played with the first team during pre-season in 2009. She made her first team debut with Espanyol in 2010 when she was 16 years old. She was part of the squad that won the 2010 Copa de la Reina, with Espanyol defeating Rayo Vallecano 3–1 in the final. Putellas played in the 2011 Copa de la Reina for Espanyol, starting in the final that they lost 0–1 in extra time to Barcelona. Putellas' performances with Espanyol identified her as one of Spain's best young players.
Already a star in the fledgling women's football world in Spain after her success with the youth national team, Putellas attracted attention when she moved to Valencian club Levante at the age of seventeen, only a month after the 2011 Copa de la Reina final. Levante did not compete in the 2012 Copa de la Reina due to failing to qualify in the previous season, but had numerous Spain football veterans and a professional environment, unusual at the time, which is said to have contributed to Putellas' individual growth. She had a personally successful 2011–12 campaign, scoring 15 goals in 34 matches (playing all matches in the season) and finishing as Levante's top scorer. At Levante, she was coached in how to play off the ball, developing technical and tactical skills like a midfielder, and to become capable with both feet after the coach, Antonio Contreras, felt she was too reliant on her left. He also said she was already a very classy and intelligent player when she joined.
Llorens and Barcelona had continued to follow Putellas' career after she left, and in the summer of 2012, following her breakthrough year with Levante and the death of her father, approached her to rejoin the club. Barcelona had also risen to dominance in the prior season, and brought in Putellas as their star signing to head a long-term project aiming for Barcelona to be able to challenge for the Champions League title after "five or six" seasons. Putellas accepted the offer, signing for the club as a forward on 10 July 2012 – in her early years with Barcelona, she often played as a false winger – and started and played most of their matches that season. Because of Barcelona's first-ever league title win in the previous season, they made their debut in the 2012–13 UEFA Women's Champions League; after signing for Barcelona, Putellas said it was a dream to be able to play in the Champions League. On 26 September 2012, she started in her UEFA Women's Champions League debut against Arsenal, which they lost 0–3 at home despite starting strong. In the away leg, Barcelona lost 0–4, and exited their tournament debut in the Round of 32.
On 5 May 2013, Putellas won her first league title with Barcelona when they defeated Athletic Bilbao 2–1 at the San Mamés to a crowd of over 25,000. In 2021, Putellas said this was one of her favourite matches because it "made her feel like a footballer". In the 2013 final of the Copa de la Reina she scored Barcelona's third goal against Prainsa Zaragoza by dribbling past two Zaragoza defenders, past their keeper, and poking the ball into the net. The goal went viral and attracted more attention for Putellas from Spanish and international media. Barcelona won 4–0, the first domestic double in their history. Putellas was chosen as MVP of the Copa de la Reina final for her performance.
In March 2014, Barcelona became the first Spanish team to reach the quarterfinals of the Women's Champions League; Putellas, acknowledging that their tie against defending champions Wolfsburg would be hard, said that Barcelona dreamed of being able to surprise them but would be "keeping [their] feet on the ground" ahead of the games; she later said that reaching a Champions League final was "a medium-to-long-term project" for the team. They lost 0–5 on aggregate, with Wolfsburg going on to win the title. On 13 April, Barcelona became league champions after the team went unbeaten for 27 games, with Putellas winning her second consecutive league title with the club. She was recognised for her incredible technical skill, particularly going one-on-one, and for being a slower player who instead used changes of pace to "destroy her opponents."
By 2014, Putellas was "widely recognised as the future of both FC Barcelona and the Spanish national team," and an integral part of Barcelona's 2014 Copa de la Reina campaign, scoring in each round of the knockout stage: her goal in the away leg of the quarter-finals against Real Sociedad saw Barcelona through with an aggregate 1–0. She was one of Barcelona's three goals for a 3–1 aggregate victory in the semi-finals, before her goals were again crucial in the final against Athletic Bilbao: her shot from outside the box in extra time took the tie to penalties, in which she scored the game-winning fifth penalty, earning her fifth major trophy with Barcelona. She was named MVP of the Copa de la Reina for the second season in a row.
