Arsenal Win Champions League: Aitana Bonmati is the best in the world, but it wasn’t enough for Barcelona in Lisbon | Football news

This was Arsenal’s moment, but the eye was drawn to a player in Barcelona’s shirt, whose day was supposed to be. Aitana Bonmati is an extraordinary performer in a woman’s game, but this time she was avoided by the Champions League trophy.

She was in tears at the final whistle, bent down, head into her hands, beaten. Bonmati comforted Leah Williamson, but it was long before any of her own teammates dared to approach her. This was a very personal sadness in a very public environment.

For what was felt like age, Bonmati struggled around the criminal box that Barcelona struggled to penetrate in the previous 90 minutes and more. The lonely figure was the last to collect the medal, and the last one still clapped as Arsenal celebrated.

While the other players fucked or looked away, Bonmati was forced to look further, as if it were her penance. She repeated this when welcoming fans. He continued for more than half an hour. Maybe these things are reduced differently for the greats.

He hugged with his mother and is still time for an animated tactical discussion with Barcelona technical director Marc Vives. Arsenal paraded the trophy, but Bonmati was still cultivating, still trying to calculate that this game was not bent toward his own will.

He must have been an alien sense of the stranger of the player. Bonmati won three of the previous four Champions League finals with Barcelona, ​​a match player in two of them. The winner of the landslide of the last two balls d’Or, three, would still be no surprise.

This child La Masia, one carried by T -shirt no. Pep Guardiola said that she was a player who reminded him of Andres Iniesta – and that the comparison is a compliment for Iniesta.

In Lisbon, such as great and well played for a European showcase, fellow players spoke about her genius in respect. And it is undoubted that it is ingenious. The technique is out of comparison. Bonmati glizes. But there are more here.

In an interview with Tatian Pinto of Atletico Madrid, the winner of the 115 Portugal cap, she tries to explain. “How smart and how fast is it to move to space,” Pinto says Sky Sports. “How much is available to receive the ball.” Brazilian legend Tamires agrees.

“Yes, I think it’s her constant movement,” Tamires says Sky Sports. “It’s simply so hard for a person who has to mark her to catch her because she always thinks ahead of the game and is always constantly moving towards the right space.”

‘She has that magic’

The conversation with the former favorite Arsenal Anita Asante has proven to be a special illumination. Asante is now a coach and professionally breaks what Bonmati does so special. “In England, often hard work is associated with work outside of possession,” she says Sky Sports.

“The game is not often left in the same way in terms of possession. The players work equally tiring to get on the ball, stay on the ball and have been an option or create space for others. It is a hard work for me. It is constantly, it is a very busy job.

“Bonmati always thinks about how to dispute the deciding of the opposition player. In which spaces do I pull in that player? She may not even be involved in the first phase, but she sees the game ahead of others. This is her intelligence to play.

“And when she receives the ball, she always scans, so when you add her technical skills, she is able to receive under pressure and avoid that pressure with ease. The massive technical skill is to do so and be comfortable doing this.

“To be comfortable enough to get out of trouble, it is locked, but get out of it, it has such sharpness. This kind of spring to get out of people in narrow spaces, pull the player toward the ball, and then dragged it. That is what he has. He has that magic.”

Rest under your best

Yet, against the humorous Arsenal, the one who firmly defended herself and attacked the premises behind Barcelona’s defense, none of that turned out enough. Bonmati held his principles, believed in this, but there was always the body of Arsenal along the way.

They blocked three of her shots, while many chances she created directly for others were missed. There are many more of her allegations that saved or scattered the openings. Bonmati is a team player. She needed a team to play better than this.

Alexia Putellas was significantly below her best. In 65 minutes, Bonmati showed the ball, but Caroline Graham Hansen opted for a shot from the absurd angle. At the age of 82, Bonmati smartly put in the ball into the Batlle path, but she made a mess on the cross.

Sometimes the scalpel is simply not as effective as a class. And besides, Beth Mead gave the key moment of playing the game, with that reverse pass to Stina Blackstenius, ending Barcelona and Bonmatia’s four -time dream.

At the age of 27, there will be many more moments for the best player in the world to confirm the women’s game again. Copa de la Reina is only two weeks away. The Spanish favorite is to win the Euro 2025 this summer and the addition of the World Cup Award winning in 2023.

In this context, it may be a little unusual to put the focus on being decaying once, not countless marvelous stories among the underdogs of Arsenal. But there was something convincing in watching this emotional calculation for an elite athlete.

Such is the fascination of football. She was the best in the world to go into play and is still obviously the best in the world at the end. But as Arsenal celebrated, Aitana Bonmati, feeling that the weight of the responsibility that comes with her size could only be struggling.

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