Not many gamers select to depart Barcelona on a number of events.
Vicky Losada has carried out simply that – thrice to be exact – with every of her exits marking a symbolic step within the progress of Barcelona’s girls’s workforce.
After progressing by the membership’s esteemed La Masia academy, Losada first left Barcelona in 2007 following their relegation to the second tier.
They bounced straight again and Losada returned the next season. However, with the membership not changing into an expert outfit till summer time 2015, Losada left to affix Arsenal in March of that yr. She got here again for her third chunk of the Barca cherry 20 months later.
“I went abroad to be professional and I came back to a club that was professional,” Losada instructed 90min.
The midfielder emotionally introduced her departure from Barcelona for a 3rd time in June 2021; just a little over a fortnight after she had captained the membership to their maiden Champions League title.
“I think it was the perfect way,” she explains. “Winning the Champions League helped me because it was my dream to do it defending those colours. As a footballer and with such a long career you know when you’re [at] an end of a cycle.
“I believe that was my time to go, and I used to be by no means anticipating that good bye and all of the love from all of the followers, and I used to be by no means anticipating how a lot girls’s soccer was going to develop. I truly nonetheless have a look at images and really feel so fortunate that I’ve lived by that in my profession.”
Some of the most iconic pictures from that famous night in Gothenburg are of Losada; Champions League trophy clasped in her hand and nets draped around her shoulders like a scarf.
“When I used to be rising up I couldn’t watch girls’s soccer as a result of they weren’t exhibiting it on TV, so my goals got here from the boys’s soccer,” Losada says. “So I at all times bear in mind [Gerard] Pique taking the nets with Barca, and also you simply need to be like that once you win.
“It was a great moment to take a bit of the net – I mean I think we nearly took all of it… I have just a little piece at home. I feel so lucky how everything ended and everything that Barca has given me.”
Barcelona’s achievements in the course of the 2020/21 season had been years within the making. Since turning skilled, the membership’s philosophy has been to spend money on their crop of first workforce and academy gamers; Losada was one in all 9 La Masia graduates within the squad for Barcelona’s 2020/21 Champions League triumph.
This method didn’t garner success in a single day.
Barcelona completed as league runners as much as Atletico Madrid 4 years on the bounce, and have been overwhelmed 4-1 by Lyon within the 2019 Champions League closing.
But the membership stormed to the treble in 2021, securing European glory with a devastating 4-0 victory over Chelsea. And all whereas enjoying the Barcelona means.
“Even at the very start we used to play against Wolfsburg, Lyon, all the big, big teams in Europe. And we never lost our identity of that loving the game, showing the beautiful football, but we were just not ready,” Losada says. “We had goals that then on the pitch we couldn’t obtain.
“In the tip we [went] from a workforce with goals to a successful workforce. Just a machine of successful video games, and the best way we have been doing it, for me, I believe is what made it very particular.
“It didn’t really change when we were making substitutions, the style was there. A lot of players were from La Masia and it was just an amazing moment; I think it is really, really hard that that happens again the same way.”
Losada had beforehand voiced her intention to retire at Barcelona, however she was tempted away from her childhood membership by Manchester City and the problem of the WSL.
“When I left Arsenal, I never wanted to leave because I was giving really good performances and I knew the league was going to make me better because of the players,” she provides. “The commitment and everything that was going on here was amazing. But I wanted to come back to my home and be part of that process that I believed was going to take us to win the Champions League – and that’s what happened.
“I believe life in the long run introduced me again right here and I can say once more now that the funding from TV, advertising revenues, everybody – the ladies’s soccer is simply superb.”
Losada’s uniqueness in soccer extends past her a number of departures from Barcelona.
The 31-year-old doesn’t eat meat, and her diet is 90% plant based. She initially made the change in 2019 to aide her recovery from injury. With the help of a nutritionist, she progressively made this diet permanent.
“Definitely now even in my numbers in efficiency [improve]; the weights, all the pieces I do day-after-day,” Losada explains. “And my physique feels means nicer. Going plant based simply makes me really feel means higher.”
The wider benefits of a plant based diet also appeal to Losada. You can’t help but draw comparisons between her and another environmentally conscious, Spanish, former Arsenal player.
“I bear in mind watching a documentary of Hector Bellerin and he had an enormous damage and he modified his diet, and his life on the whole modified utterly,” she adds. “I believe he was one of many first footballers to talk about plant based.
“It’s one of the best things I’ve done in my life because also now you realise that this helps the environment, and makes the world happier and better.
“I truly suppose once I retire I’ll nonetheless be plant based. But for me I’m aware about animals, the change we’re making on the planet with all of the impression we’re making with unsuitable habits. If I is usually a small assist, I’m proud to be a part of it.”Â
Vicky Losada was speaking as part of her work with American Pistachio Growers. Pistachios are a convenient snack, with a high antioxidant capacity, that make up a complete protein. They are also portable and don’t require any preparation. Vicky incorporates pistachios into her training diet to fuel her active lifestyle, and to help refuel and recover before and after a match.