Girls Don’t Play Fútbol

My visit to Switzerland for the Euro Championship Match Between Spain and Italy

We woke early in Zurich and crossed the street in flip-flops with towels slung over our shoulders. A morning swim in the Limmat River is one of my favorite summer traditions. At 6:45 a.m., there are already a few locals powering upstream against the current. Others have dry bags clipped to their waists and float by with a childlike grin as they let the city river carry them to work.

See: Jumping from the Bridge at the Limmat River

To be clear, we don’t fit in. My third culture kids swing heavily to their American roots at a river or a lake, and I love it. Cannonballs off the bridge, orange soda for breakfast, and way too much commentary:

12-year-old: That dude looks older than Dumbledore and has been swimming upstream in the same spot for like 30 minutes now.

15-year-old: What if this is his first time in the river and he needs help.

12-year-old: He looks like the kind of guy who wants to go out this way. Like, on his terms. And you don’t wear a swimsuit that small if this is your first rodeo.

After a few jumps off the bridge, we were drying off and heading back to the hotel. The rest of the day unfolded in full summer mode—slow and indulgent. We grabbed burgers and milkshakes at Black Tap, then ducked into Blue Cinema for an air-conditioned screening of Jurassic Park. By late afternoon, we were dressed and ready for the main event: Spain vs. Italy at the European Championship.

We arrived at the stadium in a jam-packed train full of fans in red and blue. Switzerland, as the tournament host, is offering free public transportation to every match in the country—a brilliant gesture that transforms every train ride into part of the experience. Ours felt like a moving block party: flags, chants, and someone blasting Rosalía from a portable speaker.

We lived in Madrid for two years, and Spain left its mark on all of us—especially through fútbol. Supporting La Roja became part of my daughters’ stories, ever since they were told that girls don’t play fútbol by a few of their classmates during their first day of recess.

They don’t take well to nonsense. Within weeks, they had joined Atlético Madrid’s youth academy and fell in love with the game. Now they’re the ones keeping me updated—on scores, transfers, and which players they hope will get together and make a super baby. You know, for science.

See: Watching the Spain vs. Italy Game at Wankdorf Stadium

So it didn’t surprise me when, from start to finish at Wankdorf Stadium on Friday night, they were on their feet cheering, pointing, and shouting. At times, it felt more like a concert than a match.

Fútbol, like many sports, has a rhythm. There’s a history of strategy and formations woven into the game that create a sort of norm or predictability in the way the ball moves from one side of the field to the other. You can feel it in the stands: heads turning in unison, fans anticipating the next pass before it’s made. The best teams build on that rhythm, playing almost like a symphony: strategic, rehearsed, in sync.

But for me, the best moments in fútbol come when someone has the gall to disrupt the rhythm. When a player steps out of what’s predicted and creates something beautiful that changes everything.

And nobody does that better than Aitana Bonmatí.

She has an imposing presence. When the ball comes to her, defenders take a step back and the stadium holds its breath. Then, in a flash, she does something you didn’t see coming. A pause, a touch, a turn that nobody predicted. The rhythm breaks and Aitana begins creating something new.

She somehow makes disruption seem natural. And so easy. As if she were born with a ball at her feet and the wind at her back.

Watch: Aitana Bonmatí Highlights

It’s easy to see why she’s been named the best player in the world for two years running. But Aitana’s path to fútbol glory was far from predestined. Her story—like much of modern Spain—is set against the backdrop of a brutal civil war, the 36-year dictatorship of Francisco Franco that lasted until his death in 1976, and the cultural residue of a regime that tried to define what women could and couldn’t be.

The Backdrop

By the late 1930s, as Franco consolidated power at the end of the Spanish Civil War, the Sección Femenina began instructing girls and women on their place in society: to keep a tidy home, be silent in public life, and submit to their husbands. The section’s leader, Pilar Primo de Rivera, made sure the messaging was clear:

“Women never discover anything; they lack, of course, the creative talent, reserved by God for manly intelligences; we can do nothing more than interpret, better or worse, what men give us done.”

These expectations were codified in the Elementary Education Act of 1945 and taught at every primary school in Spain. Questioning these beliefs was a subversive act, and Franco’s national police were given broad authority to enforce these norms.

Franco’s iron grip on Spain represents the “longest personal dictatorship in European history,” a 39-year period in which he shaped public policy, government institutions, and daily life in ways that were meant to outlast his regime. Old grudges were settled by midnight executions, dissidents were imprisoned without trial, and children were taken from their parents and systematically sold to families loyal to the regime.

The Inertia

Dictators die, but the stories they tell about who belongs tend to outlive them. Franco was gone, and Spain began its long overdue transition to democracy. But the messaging his regime left behind endured: quietly, stubbornly, and in more places than most people wanted to admit.

So when women around the world began a fútbol revolution nearly 15 years later—spurred by the launch of the first FIFA Women’s World Cup in 1991—it appeared that Spain would not be a part of it. Their women’s national team was still in its infancy and often struggled to even qualify for major tournaments.

What made that absence even more striking was what was happening on the other side of the game. During Franco’s regime, Spain’s men had managed just one major tournament win—a European Championship in 1964—and spent decades underachieving on the global stage. But in the years after his death, everything changed. The Royal Spanish Fútbol Federation rose from the wreckage of Franco’s rule and began developing a golden generation of boys in the early 1980s. Players like Xabi Alonso, Andrés Iniesta, and Xavi Hernández would go on to form the most successful men’s national team in fútbol history, dominating international play with back-to-back Euro titles and a World Cup between 2008 and 2012.

And for many women watching across Spain—Aitana included—there was real joy and inspiration in those accomplishments.

“I would zoom in on Xavi and Iniesta: How they moved, how they created chances, how they scanned the space around them before receiving the ball. Iniesta was always driving the ball forward, so I tried to do that.”

But it also hurts to grow up watching the door open for others while it stays shut for you. The same federation that fueled those careers offered little more than scraps to the women’s game. There was no real pressure to do more—not when you’d spent your whole life hearing, in one form or another, that girls don’t play fútbol.

This obviously wasn’t a hard rule; instead, it was casually muttered by boys on the playground:

Girls don’t play fútbol.

It was often reinforced by parents at home:

Girls don’t play fútbol.

If you weren’t listening—if it didn’t affect you—then you might not even hear it.

Only recently is the world beginning to understand the dramatic impact of the pockets of resistance in Spain that refused to listen, such as a Catalan teacher who raised her small, precocious daughter in a fishing port outside of Barcelona.

Making Their Own Way

Rosa Bonmatí gave birth to Aitana in 1998, a time when Spanish law still dictated that children list their paternal surname first. She and her husband, Vicent, rejected the mandate and took the matter to parliament, where the law was ultimately repealed a year later.

At age 6, Aitana expressed interest in playing fútbol, a passion her parents encouraged by finding her a spot on a local boys’ team.

“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. But I don’t blame those boys, it was an issue of education and society as a whole.”

Aitana’s intensity was impossible to ignore. By 14, she had joined FC Barcelona’s newly formed women’s youth team—training at one of the most valuable and storied clubs in the game. But from the inside, it didn’t look like a breakthrough. It looked like a dead end.

Back then, Barça Femení wasn’t on TV. They weren’t professional. They didn’t play at Barcelona’s famous Camp Nou stadium. For most girls, there was no path to a real career. Aitana and her parents even seriously explored options in the U.S., where at least she could combine soccer with a university degree.

Then, at 17, something shifted. After years of being treated like a second-tier project, FC Barcelona made its women’s team professional. It wasn’t because the federation had suddenly stepped up. It was the result of decades of work—led by women across Spain who kept building, insisting, and demanding something better, often with nothing but talent, determination, and each other.

Like fútbol, life has a rhythm. There’s a history of strategy and formations woven into society that create a sort of norm or predictability in the way we act and the decisions we make. You can feel it in our daily interactions, the words we use, the stories we tell.

For me, the best moments in life come when someone has the gall to disrupt the rhythm. When a person steps out of what’s predicted and creates something beautiful that changes everything.

A year after Barça turned professional, Aitana was promoted to the first team and soon thereafter called up to the Spanish Women’s National Team. Within five years, she became the first player—male or female—to win the World Cup, the Champions League, and the Ballon d’Or within the same season.

And still, the challenges faced by Spain’s women during that five-year rise made global headlines: the La Quince protest; the unwanted kiss heard around the world; a federation president who refused to resign; and years of unequal treatment both on and off the pitch.

But through it all, Aitana and her teammates made their own way forward. They kept creating. They kept disrupting the rhythm.

And although few members of Spain’s fútbol elite have been willing to confront the depth of what these women endured, a few—like Xabi Alonso, Andres Iniesta, and Xavi Hernandez—have expressed their support publicly and emphatically:

“It’s not just about changes in fútbol, but in our entire society…My daughters will remember why these women fought. They fight for what is right and, above all, for a better future.” - Xabi Alonso

Creating. Meaning. Everywhere

---

Thanks for reading about Aitana Bonmatí and the Spanish Women’s National Team.

This summer I’ll be traveling to Poland, Pakistan, the U.S., Ethiopia, and a few other places to meet with people who are creating meaningful change in their communities.

About 3–4 times a month, I’ll share reflections on what I’m learning—stories from the road, insights from my work with entrepreneurs and leaders, and thoughts on how we create meaning through what we build.

If that resonates, I’d love for you to follow along.