There are transfers, and then there are big transfers. Players that make you instantly sit up and take notice. Footballers that get you on the edge of your seat merely at the mention of their name. It’s fair to say that Alexia Putellas falls into this latter category, a two-time Ballon d’Or winner, Barca’s record goalscorer, and who arrives on the back of winning a quadruple. Put simply, London City Lionesses have made a huge statement with her signing, and the rest of us are in for a treat.
Putellas has been the captain and beating heart of FC Barcelona for the last 14 years. On Saturday, as she left the pitch to a standing ovation having played her part in Barca winning another Champions League, their fourth in sixth years, it was widely acknowledged that it would be her last big game in the famous red and blue.
True enough, on Tuesday, she announced her departure. On Wednesday, she plays her last game for a club she’s represented with such distinction.
"The time has come to acknowledge that I've given everything for these colours," Putellas said in a video posted on her social media accounts. “It's been a perfect story.”
The question was, though, where would she go next? Everyone wanted Putellas.
She was linked with clubs across Europe, in America and beyond. She has spent all of her senior career not just playing for Barca Femini, but forming part of the nuts and bolts of a team who would become the dominant force domestically and in Europe. She, and they, have been unstoppable.
In 2021, she was the first player to score a goal at Camp Nou for Barca Feminini. At the end of that season, she became the first Spanish player to win the Ballon d’Or Feminine.
She won it again a year later.
In 2024, she scored the winning goal in stoppage time for Barcelona against OL Lyonnes in the Champions League final.
This year, she captained the side to a domestic treble and then won the Champions League again, again at OL Lyonnes’ expense, in what was Barca’s sixth successive final. She was subsequently named as the Champions League's Player of the Season for the second time in her career. In total, she scored 21 goals and provided 13 assists over 42 appearances in all competitions.
At 32, she seems to be getting better.
In total, with Barca, she won ten league titles, ten Copa de la Reina titles (and another with Espanyol), seven Copa Catalunya titles (she won an eighth at Espanyol) and four Supercopa de Espana. She scored 232 goals in 507 appearances. No player has scored more goals for the women’s team, and only Lionel Messi has scored more for the men’s.
She has also been a trailblazer for the Spanish Women’s national team too, forming part of the World Cup winning squad in 2023, and then finishing runners up at the UEFA Euros last summer. She has also won the UEFA Nations League twice, in 2024 and 2025.
And now we get to watch her every week here in England, after the news that she’s joining London City Lionesses.
The London club are now hoping the mercurial midfielder can take them to the next level just like she did FC Barcelona and Spain.
Already filled with talents like Grace Geyoro, Kosovare Asllani and Delphine Cascarino – and with a Spanish connection already in ambitious coach Eder Maestre and defender Jana Fernandez, Putellas could fit right in.
The Lionesses harbour ambitions to push for qualification for the UEFA Women’s Champions League and Putellas could help them do just that.
In 2025-26, they earned the highest points tally of any newly promoted side this season, finishing sixth. The goal now is to keep improving. To keep pushing the boundaries.
Putellas is the first winner of the Ballond’Or Feminin to play in England, and she follows in the footsteps of fellow Spaniards Mariona Caldentey, Laia Codina and Vicky Losada to swap their home country for the BWSL.
While we can’t predict what’s next for the London City Lionesses, what we do know with concrete certainty is that with Putellas in the squad, life for the club, the BWSL and English football in general, is about to get up close and personal with one of the all-timers.