AUCKLAND, New Zealand -- On July 26, for the first time in 431 days, Alexia Putellas started a competitive football match. The back-to-back Ballon d'Or winner completed 45 minutes as Spain dismantled Zambia 5-0 at Eden Park after recovering from a torn anterior cruciate ligament injury earlier this year.
Putellas, 29, had come off the bench to a warm reception in Wellington five days earlier as La Roja beat Costa Rica 3-0 in their Women's World Cup opener. Against Zambia, the midfielder was named in the starting XI and provided a couple of moments to suggest she could have an impact at this tournament, including setting up the second goal for Jennifer Hermoso with a perfectly arched cross.
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But the brakes were put on those hopes as Spain succumbed 4-0 to a clinical Japan side on Monday. Putellas completed an hour but, like many of her teammates, was unable to break through a well-drilled Japan backline and proved incapable of stopping their efficient transitions. Futoshi Ikeda's side scored with all three of their first-half attacks, in the final third for just 27 seconds. By comparison, Spain spent over five minutes passing the ball around in Japan's final third in the same time frame.
Spain will hope the minutes accrued during the group stage will help their star player rediscover her best form as they prepare for Saturday's round-of-16 tie with Switzerland back at Eden Park on Saturday.
Putellas is a midfielder who can do it all. She links play but she also creates and, above all, has a knack for scoring goals. For Barcelona in 2021-22, she netted 34 times in 42 games, including 11 in 10 in the Champions League. The season prior to that she scored 26 times. Those numbers earned her the nickname La Reina (The Queen) and it was publicity images of Putellas that replaced Lionel Messi in some of the prime advertising spots in Barcelona when the Argentina forward left the club for PSG in 2021. Her face also adorned the facade at Spotify Camp Nou before redevelopment work began this summer.
She is of such interest across the country that radio shows previously reserved for men's football now offer opinions on her future, with her contract up in 2024. Barca president Joan Laporta came out recently to knock back the suggestion she could leave, saying talks to renew her deal were already underway.
So, ordinarily, the buildup to Spain's third appearance in the finals would have been dominated by talk about whether Putellas is ready to take her national team to the next level, as she has done with Barcelona over the last four years. Instead, the focus has been on how fit she is. Putellas injured her ACL last July and missed Euro 2022 in England. It came at perhaps the peak of her career and, in scenes shown in a documentary called "Alexia: Labor Omnia Vincit" at the end of last year, she told her agent at the time that she doubted whether she would ever return to the top level of the game.
For most of the past season she has sat on the sidelines and her return to action has been treated with extreme caution. She started training in March but it was not until April 30 that she made her way back on to the pitch and was a substitute in Barca's final six games after 10 months out. She played just over 100 minutes for her club in total, including a few as the Blaugrana beat Wolfsburg in the Champions League final June. More minutes have followed for Spain. She featured for an hour in pre-World Cup friendly wins over Panama and Denmark, scoring against the former, but has not completed 90 minutes for over a year.
Leaving nothing to chance, she has worked closely with her personal physio Adrian Martinez Castro, who has previously worked with Arthur Melo and Bojan Krkic, and dovetails with Barca and Spain's medical teams. She is also self-aware enough to know that, even though she has been named the best player in the world two years running, she can still learn from others. Barca teammate and England international Lucy Bronze -- who has also suffered from a serious knee injury -- says Putellas is the player who has asked her for the most advice since she joined from Manchester City last summer.
"I told her the story of what has happened to my knees and how it is still a problem these days," Bronze told ESPN. "Sharing stories and experiences helps other people and maybe helps her understand her own knee a little bit better.
"I went through all that in my 20s and still managed to make it to the top of my game. She is at the top of her game already, so she can come back at the end of this injury, get herself even higher, do even more, push herself even more and maybe learn a bit about herself that she would not have learned if she wasn't injured."
Still, alarm bells rang upon Spain's arrival in New Zealand when she trained on her own. Sources told ESPN that was always the plan after the long journey, considering her injury, but it did not stop players and coaches being quizzed about Putellas' readiness for the biggest event in the women's football calendar.
"If she's here, it's because she is 100%," became the stock answer from teammates at media events.
Putellas has been given the time to feel her way into the World Cup. Playing a major role at this tournament, though, is what she has been working towards since sitting out Euro 2022, where Spain were narrowly beaten in the quarterfinals by hosts and eventual winners England.
Sam Marsden feels Alexis Putellas' availability for Spain's World Cup opener will provide a great boost for her side after previous concerns over her fitness.
Despite supporting the 15 Spain players who made themselves unavailable last September in protest at the conditions with the national team -- only three of the 15 have returned to the squad for the World Cup, with key players Mapi Leon and Patri Guijarro among those opting out -- Putellas did not send the email withdrawing herself from selection. She says that's because she was injured and not selectable anyway, but sources said that, with the World Cup around the corner, and after missing the Euros, she did not want to close any doors too hastily.
The World Cup is the biggest showcase there is and international honours are the only thing missing from Putellas' trophy haul. She hates losing (friends say she takes days to respond after defeats) and last season, despite Barca winning a Liga F and Champions League double, was tough for her. She remained around the first team during her rehabilitation; she was present at home games, when supporters chanted her name in the 11th minute of every match -- No. 11 is what she wears; she even came on in the Champions League final and lifted the trophy as club captain. But sources say while she was delighted with the team's success, she is desperate to end a difficult season by leaving her mark at the World Cup.
This is Putellas' third appearance at a World Cup finals. She was part of the Spain squad which exited the competition at the group stage in 2015, and then to the United States in the round of 16 in 2019. On neither occasion was she expected to be one of the stars of the tournament. That she is this time is evidence of her hard work, ambition and attention to detail. After the 2019 Champions League final defeat to Lyon, she says she doubled her workload and improved her habits off the pitch. Since then, the Catalan side have won four league titles and two Champions Leagues, recorded a 64-game unbeaten streak in Liga F and broke the attendance record in women's football twice.
"For me, 95% of my life decisions depend on if my performance will improve or not," Putellas said in the aforementioned documentary. "It is never enough. Win more, train more ... I want to be the best in the world."
Helping Spain bounce back from their first four-goal defeat since 2012 at this summer's World Cup, though, may be her biggest challenge yet.