In the press room of the Barcelona Sports City, friends, family, colleagues, staff and board to fire Mariona Caldentey after ten seasons at the Barça club. A versatile and versatile forward. She is key for all her coaches, not so media or a star despite her talent with the ball, vision for the pass and scoring ability. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to read,” the 28-year-old Balearic woman began her speech, with a broken voice, after watching a video reviewing her sporting career. And she continued with a summary from when she landed in Can Barça at the age of 18, thanking her for the support. But she broke down when she remembered her father, who died in 2018: “Dad, I wouldn’t know how to explain to you that I have won three Champions Leagues with your beloved Barça.” At the end, Jonatan Giráldez, her coach who will also leave her at the end of the season, offered her a tissue. The soccer player laughed. Mariona never loses her smile.
The timing of the decision—very “meditated” and “mourned”—he did not want to specify: “What happens behind closed doors remains like this. Walking with poker makes me feel calmer. But timing In private”. And the reasons for his departure – a priori he will head to England, to Arsenal – “to grow” as a footballer and person, make his “comfort zone” bigger and seek “new challenges.” “Ten years ago when I arrived, we were not professionals. And now I think we have made a path in which many people have participated. Now he had the feeling that he needed new challenges and motivations. If I leave Barça it is to leave the Spanish league. (…) What we have achieved is unmatched and historic. I have won everything here, now I want to win somewhere else,” Mariona answered.
But, laughing between emotion and tears, he assured that he will not go to the Washington Spirit, Giráldez’s future team: “I’m not going to Washington with him.” And not for not believing in the team. “The club’s commitment is firm and real, I am not leaving to doubt Barça. Neither my teammates nor I had any doubts,” said the Balearic woman. Although the level and lack of competitiveness in Spain is evident to her. “It is evident that Barcelona has a brutal dominance in League F. We won the games decisively. There are other leagues that you see where you want to play. And the career of a soccer player is short and passes very quickly. I think I have been honest with myself, it is what my career needed,” Mariona confessed. And he also wanted to emphasize those improvements necessary for the state competition: “There should be fewer teams, because the number of games we have is not healthy for the players, and from there improve the structures of the fields and the visibility to follow our games. I hope the F League not only has the name of professional, and that it is.”
She leaves happy, and proud, but also respected. She has achieved everything these ten seasons. And this year could not have been more rounded, with the achievement of the four titles. “If I have one moment, it would be the Champions League.” She leaves through the front door, with a club that has “changed her life.” When she finished, her classmates hugged her. For them she also had words for the successes achieved: “We all know that it has not been easy. It’s not just about winning, but about how we’ve won.” Some of them, in tears. “This week has been the one where I have really felt sadness. I have cried a lot these days being alone in the room with the team. But I feel very loved by everyone,” said the forward. It is the beginning of the farewell: two league games ahead. The last one this Sunday, at the Johan, where she will say goodbye in front of the fans.
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