#fcb mags

She struggles to answer that question herself, too. Never had the 24-year-old from Tåsen imagined becoming the captain of a football team, she was somehow not the right "type". At least it’s what she believed for a long time.

Now she stands in her bright and modern apartment in Barcelona and shows her way through the kitchen, living room and out onto the balcony. From there you can see Ciutat Esportiva Joan Gamper, the huge sport center where she spends much of the day.

“It doesn't take more than three minutes to get there”, she says. But it probably takes six to seven minutes to get through all of the security checks and hallways and wardrobes before she reaches the training ground. Barcelona is a giant club, which, in addition to the popular football team, is at the top of the world in handball, basketball, futsal, volleyball and hockey.

Graham Hansen has had a dream start on her stay, and although she has only been there for three months, she has found "her place". After eight rounds, Barcelona leads the Spanish league, and the Norwegian has done exactly what coach Lluís Cortés brought her to do: "to control the game, speed up and create an opponent's imbalance".

"The Dark Time"

A lot has happened since the Lyn era, but football means at least as much now as it did for her then. And when you bet everything in one card, the result is great.

Graham Hansen keeps all the pennants she gets in international matches.

Her apartment is full of pennants that remind her of how much she has experienced as a football player. When she has collected a few more of these, she wants to sew them together into a kind of quilt that can hang on the wall. Maybe it can help with dark thoughts, if they show up again.

Because it is no more than a couple of years ago that Graham Hansen was down in what she refers to as "the dark time". When she was repeatedly injured in Wolfsburg, and missed both the championships (I think this refer to WWC 2015) with the national team and the Champions League final with the club, the Norwegian was feeling down..

She often trained alone and was given a lot of time to think about the future and the uncertainty surrounding it. And for someone who is already pondering a lot, the difficult thoughts prevailed.

A mental trainer at the club came up with a piece of advice that would prove to make life a little easier. It was not a quilt with pennants, but a suggestion to write down all the thoughts she had and sort them that way.

Graham Hansen had not expressed herself in that way since she was forced to do so in Norwegian school hours, but decided to give the proposal a try.

Inside the "notes" of her phone, today there are countless texts containing her deepest and most painful thoughts. Some pure thoughts, some poems, some "rubbish". Usually a result of a difficult experience, or a tough period, in the 24-year-old footballer's life.

Reject

For Graham Hansen, football has meant everything since childhood. That is why she was heavily involved when, as a 14-year-old, she was no longer allowed to play matches in the boys team she had been playing for several years. Was she suddenly not good enough anymore?

One thing was to not play because she was sportier than her teammates. She had accepted that. But when she was told that the coach thought she had a bad influence on the boys because she was a girl, the world collapsed.

- I was told that every time I came and trained with the guys, they lost focus and mess up the workouts. But I was part of the guys, I had played with them for years, says Graham Hansen.

The coach in question denies expressing this. He says it was not his decision that she should no longer play on the G95 (class of 95 I guess) team for Lyn.

Gradually, the Graham Hansen family also began to feel what they perceived to be the envy of some parents who thought she was taking up a place on the first team, which should have gone to one of the boys.

- I've heard that many of the guys struggled to sleep because they were so nervous about which team they were taken out on, so there was a lot of emotion inside the picture. So then I think it was easy for parents to say, "Hey, she's a girl, she can find a girl team to play on."

It developed into a bigger debate in the club, and eventually the coach of the girls team, Trésor Egholm, chose to take Graham Hansen to Lyn's sporting selection.

- It would have been very strange for me to welcome her to the girls team and say that it was a good enough arrangement for her, because it wasn't. So then it made the most sense to say.

"How am I as a friend? You would have to ask my friends that", Alexia Putellas answers when asked about her way of understanding friendship.

Well, Virginia Torrecilla tells story that Alexia opened the doors of her house when she signed for Barcelona, in the summer of 2012. "We were 18. It's the time we do crazy things, that you don't stop to think twice a thing”, remembers Putellas. "Above all, Vir had never left her homeland! The truth is that I am very proud of my family. They take her inside and want Virginia as if she were a part of the family" agrees the '11' Barca in statements to EFE.

Mariona Caldentey also appreciates the support that the Mollet del Vallès footballer has been providing for seven months, coinciding with the loss of her father. Alexia Putellas crossed the same trance years ago. "Unfortunately, the same thing happened to me" recalls the Catalan midfielder.

"I know how Mariona feels, she and her family. I just try to help as much as possible. Fortunately, Mariona is a strong minded person. She is moving forward. We will make sure that" remarks Putellas, with haltingly.

Sometimes through a gesture, other times through speech, Alexia Putellas has become a great support for Mariona Caldentey. "If you see a person besides you every day, to whom something similar to yours has happened, you simply do not need to talk every day. With a gesture, you can make that person not end up always thinking the same thing, both me and my friends, when something like that happens, it is a disgrace, for any person it is a very sensitive thing, we have to be there for each other. Above all, Mariona is a player who can always give you something different and what the most important of the soccer player is the mind" says Alexia.

The young Balearic (Mariona) has managed to accept it. "These are situations that occur, which obviously you do not expect or choose. They are things that happen. As hard as it sounds, life is like that and life goes on," she says in an interview with EFE in the concentration of the Spanish team in Le Havre

Fortunately, she says, she found in football a "way of escape" to sadness and pain. "When everything happened to my father I was at home, but a week or so it was like saying: 'I need to continue with my routine, I need to escape'. For me football also meant demanding me to sleep well, demanding to eat well , to have a slightly more stable life, a little quieter ", she clarifies.

In the world of football, however, Mariona Caldentey (Felanich, 1996) found complicities. Andrea Sánchez Falcón celebrated her goal against Poland in Butarque with a shirt with the number 22, Mariona’s. "I was watching that game at home. The truth is that they are gestures that move me" confesses the young Balearic.

From the first moment, the Barcelona player felt "supported". "Both in the club, which had very nice gestures towards me; as well as in the selection. When these things happen you have to stay with the positive and I stay with the reaction of the people. For example, with Alexia, who also faced something similar several years ago. It has been a very important support, she is always by my side just like her other companions. That is very beautiful because before we are players, we are human" she emphasizes.

Once this "tough year" ends, Mariona Caldentey RESOLVES to feel "strong" and "positive". There is often a big smile on her face and she laughs at the present.

"I am a young player, but luckily I have had many opportunities to play important matches at club and national level. I am prepared, wanting to face this responsibility. In the end, this happens very fast and we have to take advantage of it" she says. Immersed in its first ever World Cup.

"Surely there are players with more quality than me," he says, "but I am delighted to be here and to contribute the most". "We know that we are missing perhaps that point of verticality or goal. I, as an offensive player, accept that responsibility naturally and want to do it well", she adds.

Thinking about qualifying for the round of 16, Mariona Caldentey  (headline in the victory against South Africa and in the defeat against Germany ) considers "an advantage" to have a wide representation of Barça players in the Spanish team.

"The game style is quite similar", she adds. "The idea of ​​the game, too. We have many Barça players and I think those connections that are created throughout the season can be exploited in the tournament. The idea is the same and it is what we should play because it is what we are good at it", she maintains with the same naturalness with which" responsibility or pressure" fits.

"I don't play much on impulses but I try to be well placed, knowing what I have around, always looking forward", she explains. "For that I need to be attentive and focused on what is going on around me. It is true that I like to be watching a lot, watching, trying to anticipate what can happen, how my partner is going to move and how my rival is going to move to take the best advantage and maximum advantage", she adds without fear of the requirement.

Despite being in the first ever World Cup, Caldentey is in France ready to do her best. She wants to see La Roja for the first time in its history among the 16 best teams. On Monday, against China, she could celebrate that.

The leader role

Graham Hansen rarely goes sightseeing in Barcelona, but when she does, the Sagrada Familia must of course be photographed.

The 24-year-old has written since she came to Barcelona as well, but just about good things. She feels so welcome at the club, and enjoys her new neighborhood in the suburb of Sant Feliu de Llobregat. She has learned Spanish at record speed, and she exchanges a few sentences when she goes to the convenience store or greets her neighbors.

She may not be recognized on the street yet, as the club's men's players are, but she seems to be only positive.

- I don't exactly think I'm the born superstar, like that off the football pitch, so I think it's really okay not to get too much attention, she says.

She may be richer in many experiences, both as a human and as a football player, but there is still much left of the 15-year-old girl Lise Klaveness became acquainted with in Stabæk.

Attention skepticism is one thing, but she is still reserved and at least as gruesome. Nevertheless, national team manager Martin Sjögren wanted Graham Hansen to take on a leadership role before the summer World Cup.

She didn't understand that much. The thought hadn't even hit her. She hadn't even been a captain in a club, suddenly she was going to lead a national team?

- I think Martin saw what I've never seen, or anyone else has seen. And I'm very grateful that he took that chance, says the 24-year-old.

Graham Hansen proudly agreed to join the captaincy team with Maren Mjelde and Ingrid Moe Wold, and through the tournament it was as if she was growing into her new leadership role.

She cried more than she was used to, she gave high fives to fellow players in every occasion, and in the round of 16 against Australia, when the team needed her the most, she controlled almost everything Norway created in the field.

She ran for 120 minutes in front of thousands of spectators at the Allianz Riviera in Nice. And when the referee blew the whistle and signaled that it would all be decided at the penalty shootout, she ran over to the teammates, put her hand on their shoulders, looked them in the eyes and said "this is going well, we should do this."

Aitana Bonmatí: “I have shown that I can be important”

Aitana Bonmatí, FC Barcelona player and brand-new winner of the Best Catalan Player of the Year Award with Piqué, analyzes the club's current affairs, women's football, its origins and its future.

“I am a young player but I have shown that I can be important”

"Maybe we are not the best team in Europe right now, but we will be"

“This team has a different mentality from other years”

Aitana Bonmatí i Conca (21 years old), a female Barça player, meets with Mundo Deportivo in her hometown, Sant Pere de Ribes. With only 21 years, she has already been a European champion with the inferiors of the Spanish National Team twice, has played a World Cup with the absolute and has reached a Champions League final with Barça. Her numbers this season with the Barca club endorse the role she is having: three goals and one assist in the First Iberdrola and two goals in the Women's Champions League.

Aitana, a student of CAFE (Sciences of Physical Activity and Sports), analyzes for MD her current role in Barça, its origins, objectives, the news of women's football in the league and in Europe and its near future.

Born in Sant Pere de Ribes (Garraf, Catalunya), you train at CD Ribes and CF Cubelles, tokens for FC Barcelona Women in 2016 with 14 years.

How do you feel being from such a small place and being in Barça?

For me it is a pride to be from this small town and take its name to the world, because when they talks about me they talks about Ribes and I like it because it is the place where I have grown up and it is a town that I love very much.

Are you still living here, do you keep your roots and your friendships?

Yes, I train in the Ciutat Esportiva del Barça but I still live here with my parents, but here I have everything, my partner, my friends, the family ... everything, and for me being here gives me more freedom, I am prefer a small town than a city. It is not a problem to always go to Barcelona, ​​I’m getting used to and knowing what is best for you.

You come from the Club Deportiu Ribes, where as a child you played with boys, how was that time? Did you suffer or had to prove more than the rest to assert yourself?

It was a good time because in the end I learned a lot from playing with boys, both in Ribes and CF Cubelles, and I think I learned a lot because in the end the competitiveness that gives you to play with boys was not the same as with girls in those ages then. On the other hand, I did have a lot of fights with boys because at that time they did not accept that a girl who could compete with them, but that in the end made me stronger, more competitive and be the ambitious person I am today.

In what we have been in season you are having more prominence in Barça, with only 21 years, you have already started in 6 games, the last three playing the 90 minutes, you have only missed the match against Juventus in Italy. How do you look this season?

It is soon to assess how to say it is a super good season ... Even so, I am playing for many minutes but I will always say that I want more, I will not settle for what I play and I will be ambitious, because in the end, if I would not give way to improve every day and be a better player.

Pour in unfortunate incident

Caroline Graham Hansen with her dad Petter Normann Hansen in the stands when she was injured during a 2015 international match.

It is clear that Graham Hansen is not completely comfortable when asked about the difficult period in Lyn. She is conflicted and disinterested in inflating something that happened several years ago. At the same time, it is a chapter in her life that has helped shape both that player and the person she is today.

It was tough for 14-year-old Graham Hansen to feel unwanted, and the transition to the 94 team was very demanding move.

In the beginning she had little playing time, and she may not feel that she fit in completely. The easiest thing was probably to do just as many suggested: to play with the girls.

The boys had reached puberty, and physically they began to pull away from her. She realized that if she was ever going to have playing time with these guys, she had to speed up.

She had to start thinking smarter, making quicker choices with the ball and using the pace she knew she had in her body.

- Dad always said that "the day you stop trying and trying, because physical level will keep you away again, we must find another level for you". But I always just keep on trying. I never stopped trying and dribbling, even though the ones I played against were bigger and stronger.

Eventually she got paid for the effort.

She didn't just get playing time. She got to start fighting for starter spot in Lyn's 94 team, in the bone-hard intercircuit in Oslo. She worked even harder, and in the end she took to the level.

It is only afterwards that she has reflected properly on what happened in Lyn. Sure it hurt there and then, but at the same time she probably came out stronger.

Overthinking

After five years in Germany with Wolfsburg, the time was right for new challenges. All the major clubs in international women's football pursued the Norwegian player, but it was the Spanish club, ball possession football that attracted the most.

Despite being among the most sought-after players in 2019, Graham Hansen's personality is nevertheless indicative of just that. She is skeptical by nature and expert at talking herself down.

- I do this consciously to try and look from the bottom. It might be easy for others to get high on themselves when things are going well, while I rather think the other way and can say to myself that "shit, I have to make more of the situation".

In the locker room she is neither the one who speaks the most nor the one who stands out the most. She was not when she played in boys' teams in Lyn, in Stabæk's top series team or in the foreign clubs she has been to.

“She is a person who always wants to know the surroundings and who is free on the field” says former teammate and now NFF's elite director, Lise Klaveness.

Klaveness knew early on that Graham Hansen was a truly unique talent, although she thinks inflation has gone down in those words. When Graham Hansen came to Stabæk as a 15-year-old and played in the roles Klaveness had for many years, the veteran realized that "now it was just the beginning, this girl was going to be better than me.”

One thing was her technical skills, and the speed and physique she had developed through playing with some of the country's best boy players for several years. But that alone did not make her a unique talent. It was the young girl's feelings on the football pitch that made an impression on Klaveness.