Aitana Bonmat aims for second Women’s CL title with Barcelona

When Barcelona midfielder Aitana Bonmat was the only girl playing on her village’s soccer team, she quickly learned that she would have to fight for the game she loved.

That character-forging experience has helped the 25-year-old Bonmat lead her team to a fourth Women’s Champions League final in five years. On Saturday, the Spanish club will face German team Wolfsburg in Eindhoven for the title.

Back in her younger days, her opponents weren’t the source of trouble. It was her own teammates.

“I was the only girl and I remember having lots of fights. The boys had a hard time accepting that a girl could play soccer,” Bonmat told The Associated Press recently in an interview at the stadium where Barcelona’s women play most of their games. “It was like I can’t step on a girl,’ or ‘How can a girl play ahead of me?’

“But I don’t blame those boys, it was an issue of education and society as a whole,” she said about her childhood in Sant Pere de Ribes, a village just south of Barcelona where Bonmat grew up watching Lionel Messi and his teammates dominate men’s European soccer on TV.

“I think those years helped me grow as a person, forging my character, and as a player. I believe they made me a more physical player, and the intensity I play with I got from that time.” Bonmat is hoping Barcelona will win its second European Cup, and, if all goes well and a group conflict with Spain’s coach can be resolved, play at her second Women’s World Cup this year