Mariona Caldentey has adapted her game from the ideologies of Spanish football to meet the challenges of the English game. It’s clearly working, as this week she was one of ten BWSL players nominated for the 2026 Ballon d’Or Feminin…
For me, football is life. I can't imagine my life without it. When people say, "Oh, you need a lot of effort to play football”, but for me, that's what I love to do, and this is the life I choose, and it’s what I want. Football is everything. You need that passion to succeed.
In the beginning, my older brother inspired me to get involved in the game. He was always playing a lot and my dad was a coach too, so it was just all about football at home. That was normal. I started to play when I was four years old, so really young.
Growing up as a girl and wanting to play football was normal, which was really good at that time. There weren’t a lot of girls playing football where I was from, but I always had the support of my family, my teammates in my town, coaches, everyone. So I was just another kid who wanted to play football. It was not a big thing, and I think that that was important.
I certainly had exactly the same opportunities that the boys had at my school. It was nothing different, or I didn't have barriers, or at least my family didn't share them with me. I don't know if at some point there were challenges, but the bit my mom always explains to me about when she first wrote my name down to play football, was that the club called her to say: "Oh, we heard about Mario, the guy who wants to play football.’ My mom would say ‘it's actually Mariona and she’s a girl”, but then it was not a problem, they just didn't expect it.
The situation for girls now is getting better in Spain, but they still don’t have exactly the same opportunities and facilities, or quality of coaches and stuff, as the boys. We are getting there and things are improving, but my wish is that in the future it's exactly the same academy for boys and girls, the same of everything for both.
My dad was a really important part of my football life, but not because he wanted to shape me as a player. Basically, he was supporting me and was driving me to all my training, watching me play football, but he didn't try to have any kind of impact on me.
In the early years I was able to play football with freedom and was able to just enjoy playing. I don't remember anything really strict or really going into my head in terms of a way to play. I think I just felt happy playing and having that freedom. This approach is a Spanish thing; if you want the best of the players, you need to let them show themselves and to be creative and different. Because if not, we are all robots and doing the same things, and then that's not fun anymore. So I think that's important. I didn’t join Barca until I was 18. I didn’t go to La Masia [their academy], so I started playing in Mallorca with local teams there. But I would say the biggest influence on the way I played the game was the DNA of Barca because that was the team I was supporting, and it was the team that I ended up playing for. So I think I am a bit shaped by their philosophy.
In Spain, we enjoy [playing] with the ball. We love passing and we pass the ball a lot. We like to dominate the games, and I think we have a good understanding of the spaces of how to read the game. I would say we have some players that are good individually in dribbles, but I think in general Spanish culture is more like we use each other for passing, to help each other get better.
I also think it's important that players feel good on the pitch, and [feel] freedom [for] themselves, and of course we need to have respect for each other and for the opponents. And sometimes football is a bit on the limit, but it's part of the competition. Everyone wants to win, so I get it. But yeah, I would say just happy people. Then it's happy players, and then you see the best football.
In England, the style and the culture is different. It's more the physical part, more open plays, box to box. It's a different culture, and it takes time to change [as a foreign player coming to England] but I think in a way, Arsenal try to, or want to, play as well the football I like and I love. We try to mix both things; so attacking quickly, box to box, but also with physicality, and we want to dominate with the ball. So I think that made it a bit easier for me. I think every culture plays their own football, and I think that's beautiful… to have that difference. Football is not only one thing. You know, you see a lot of different countries or teams playing differently. I think that's the rich part of football.
Last season I changed my position a bit and I was playing more defensively, like as a double six. I needed to work and improve my defensive work because before that I was always going to press high, and now I had moments where I had to defend our own box, and I was not really used to that, so I was working on that. It was challenging because I haven't really been doing that role before. I was watching videos, having a lot of chats, training hard, but I think the more you learn, the better it is for you.
Ultimately, you just have to enjoy football. You never know what will happen. Things can change so quickly, for good and for bad. So enjoy it, and be happy.
