𝒞𝓇𝓎 ᖭི༏ᖫྀ

Alexia,

After 14 unforgettable years, you’ve given us everything; your brilliance on the pitch, your leadership, your endless sacrifices, and memories that will stay with us forever. From the way you commanded the midfield to the pure joy you brought to every trophy, every comeback, every moment in blaugrana… you didn’t just play for this club. You were this club. 💙❤️

It’s bittersweet watching you walk away at your peak, but how fitting for a legend who always put the team first. Thank you for the years of magic, the battles you fought through, and the standard you set for women’s football. You’ve inspired millions, including me.

I hope you can finally rest without the weight of expectations, or the pressure to always be the one carrying the team. I hope you recover fully, not just physically from everything your body has been through, but emotionally too, giving yourself the time and space to heal and rediscover the simple joys away from the spotlight. And I hope you are finally at peace, surrounded by loved ones, feeling proud of the extraordinary legacy you’ve built and free to embrace whatever comes next with that same beautiful smile we all fell in love with.

this is the most beautifully heartbreaking thing i’ve ever witnessed in my life in terms of football and i don’t think anything will ever come close to matching it. ever.

how lucky we all are to have watched her grow not just barça but women’s football in general with her own two hands (or feet, rather). how rare it is to have a legend like this; so respectful and humble and classy in everything she does. how much of a lesson it is when it comes to goodbyes, knowing when to leave, knowing how to leave.

some players stop feeling real after a while. they become part of the landscape of the sport itself. alexia is eternal in the truest and most meaningful sense. there will never be anyone like her ever.

watching someone leave with so much grace like this- maybe the beauty of football has never been winning, or trophies, or as the last few days have shown, staying forever. it is caring this deeply at all. in getting to witness eras began and end.

you look up one day and realise you've spent years watching certain players and teams and stories unfold alongside your own life. whole periods of your life are attached to football memories. you remember where you were, who you were with, who you were back then. then it sinks in, in such an evil and delicate and bittersweet sense, that the people you once watched as children or teenagers or adults have become legends, then memories, then goodbyes, and somehow time has passed for you too.

football is such a gift. it asks us to care deeply while knowing nothing lasts forever and we do it anyway. what a privelege that is. to have love this sport enough for its endings to move us all this much. to have experienced joy, grief, hope, belonging - all because of a game. a few women kicking a ball around a grass field.

Season 2 Ending: Trinity Santos invites her lonely coworker to get drinks and sing karaoke so she won’t be alone on July 4th

nigga does not equal n*gger.

black people don't usually go around calling each other the n word hard er. they say "nigga," which is a reclamation of power over a term regularly used in the destruction of our people. also not every black person says it, as the choice is theirs.

white people and non-black pocs don't get that choice because there is nothing for them to reclaim within the n-slur. the ones who want to and do use "n*gger," use it as a racial slur, plain and simple.

it's not just a word. it's what white enslavers used and called enslaved black people to dehumanize them and convey ownership over them. it's what white enslavers said while they raped black women. it's what white people said when they hung black men from trees after cutting off their dicks and then posed for postcard pictures (and picnics) after. it's what racist fucks mumble when they pass black children and black people because they don't see us as people. it's synonymous with slavery, lynching, jim crow, antiblackness, and the worst parts of humanity. those things aren't fads and neither are the negative feelings that come with being called such.