María Pérez’s meteoric rise: “In football, things don’t just happen”

María Pérez is a player with a great future ahead of her and every year she has taken a new step in her career. She made her top flight debut in 2021 aged 19, a year later she made her first appearance in the Champions League and, 12 months after that, she is at the World Cup with Spain where she made her debut at 21, just like Alexia Putellas (in 2015) and Aitana Bonmatí (in 2019).

She was brought on as Jorge Vilda’s first substitute in the Round of 16 tie against Switzerland, replacing Tere Abelleira on 64 minutes. María did not even expect to be among those chosen to travel to New Zealand. She found out that she had been called up while at home with her brother. Phone calls from her relatives came flooding in as the news spread around the Pérez household. She says that the secret to convince the coach she deserved a place was “to give everything” from the moment her name appeared on the shortlist and is the first to acknowledge that being with the national team at a World Cup is a huge privilege. María Pérez is growing by leaps and bounds and the experience in New Zealand, where she has the chance to showcase her game to the entire planet, is another step in her development. She is a player with a great future ahead of her and a personal commitment from Jorge Vilda.

The coach, coaching staff and her team mates have total faith in her talent and the qualities that she can bring to the senior side. Among them, her possession skills, and close control of the ball are stand out features, as well as her movement and reading of the game. For María, understanding football means mastering the ball and that is what makes her special. When asked about the advice that the senior players have given her, she laughs and says one of the most helpful comments came from Jenni Hermoso a week before the World Cup, who simply told her: “Stay calm, play your usual game - and everything will turn out fine”.

She defines herself as, “Happy, joking and friendly.” Out on the field of play, María Pérez can be described as a successful player, who has broken barriers sooner than expected. An elegant, classy player, with a style of her own style, but who has fine-tuned her game in the various different Catalan youth categories until she reached Can Barça.

“I played at La Roca and at La Damm.” From that time, she has great memories and a detail that changed her career forever: “My coach at Damm is one person who never doubted that I would go far. She had a lot of confidence in me and she changed my position - she switched me to a No.6 role. Before that, I had been playing as a midfielder”.

Comparisons with Busquets

Jorge Vilda explained his decision to include María in his World Cup squad. “It’s a personal bet of mine. She is the closest thing to Busquets that Spanish women’s football has”. When María hears those words from Wellington, showing a nervous smile and a special sparkle in her eyes, she confesses that she is “grateful, very grateful, although I don’t like comparisons very much.”

She explains that, “Barça’s style of football is very specific” - hence the similarity. Nevertheless she is flattered to be likened to Busi, one of the game’s greats, who she admires a lot. “Hopefully I resemble a little, a quarter, half of what Sergio Busquets is,” she says.

María does not shy away from comparing herself to male players, but she is very aware that her main references are her own peers and team mates. “A player I would like to to face at the World Cup? Keira Walsh. The benchmark for Spain? Patri Guijarro”. In less than twelve months she has gone from being the outstanding student of her two Barça team mates to an internationally recognized player. “Things don’t just happen, this year has been a great year that I will remember for the rest of my life. I wasn’t aware at first but now it’s all starting to sink in.”