Getty PhotographsSpanish soccer is on prime of the world proper now.
Final 12 months its girls’s squad gained the World Cup in a nail-biting closing towards England.
However, as Alexia Putellas is fast to level out when she speaks to BBC Newsbeat, they are not the one ones packing silverware.
The nation’s feminine under-17s and under-20s groups are additionally the present world champions.
Oh, and the lads’s group gained the Euros a number of weeks in the past, too.
Now Putellas, a two-time winner of soccer’s prestigious Ballon D’or, is setting her sights on one other prize.
The Barcelona captain will quickly be kicking off Spain’s marketing campaign for Olympic gold.
Male opponents over 24 years outdated are unable to symbolize their nations on the sporting extravaganza, however there is not any age restrict for ladies.
Putellas, talking after coaching for the Video games in Paris, admits she’s “so drained” from the post-season session.
And whereas she’s eager to cap a outstanding run of soccer success for Spain, she says the Olympics “is so completely different” to different tournaments.
“It’s like magic,” says Putellas.
“There would be the finest athletes from each sport all over the world. So it is unimaginable to be a part of.”
However you’ll be able to by no means have too many medals.
“We don’t simply need to go – we need to compete and, after all, win,” Putellas says.
The midfielder has received some expertise of profitable – she’s helped her membership Barcelona to win eight league titles and three Champions Leagues.
She was additionally a member of Spain’s World Cup-winning squad, and is the nation’s main goalscorer and most-capped feminine participant.
“It’s important to work daily, coaching,” she says.
“In case you are in love with this, you’re employed exhausting. After which I feel good issues will occur.”
Getty PhotographsA big a part of her success, she says, can also be right down to the useful resource her membership Barcelona has put into its girls’s group.
“I really feel like I am privileged. As a result of I’m going to the membership each morning, and I’ve all the things to work exhausting,” she says.
“All of the amenities, the very best coach, the very best employees.
“And for me I really feel dangerous, as a result of I do know that is not the fact for all gamers.”
In England, there have been considerations over the sources being put into the ladies’s recreation.
Some groups have faced financial difficulties, whilst revenues rise extra extensively.
“I hope that everyone takes the ladies’s recreation as severely as Barcelona,” Putellas says.
“All people’s asking you for a photograph or cheering you, it’s so magical, that setting.”
Putellas has previously spoken about institutions needing to indicate “braveness and management” to cease girls struggling a “lack of respect or abuse”.
Her team-mate Jenni Hermoso was kissed with out consent by former Spanish soccer president Luis Rubiales.
He’s now facing charges of sexual assault and coercion, which he denies.
Putellas feels authorities can do extra to help the ladies’s recreation.
“We’re working and I feel it is going higher than earlier than,” she says.
“But it surely’s by no means sufficient.”
She says she feels a accountability to make use of her platform to additional the reason for girls in sport.
“As an individual, I am quiet. I like to be with my household and associates,” she says.
“But additionally I’ve plenty of curiosity associated with the game, not only for being a footballer, for instance, being an envoy and a mentor.”
Getty PhotographsThroughout her profession, Putellas has suffered setbacks and accidents, however bounced again.
She advises different younger gamers to not lose hope in robust moments.
“I really feel that generally the participant has to do issues that are not our job,” she says.
“Typically our energy must be within the subject.
“However perhaps you’ve one other alternative in one other membership. Attempt to work exhausting, be constructive.”
Finally, for Putellas it is the love of the sport that at all times powers by means of.
“Why is soccer so particular? As a result of I feel it is the very best factor I do, I have been practising soccer since I used to be six,” she says.
“I like the best way you join together with your teammates inside the sector… in case you join with one teammate and move, move, move.
“And the second you rating – it’s a sense that produces happiness,” she says.
