In this My Game In My Words series, The Athletic builds towards the conclusion of the Women’s World Cup by talking to leading players around the world to find out how they think about football, why they play the way they do and to reflect — through looking back at their key career moments — on their achievements so far.
For Ona Batlle, one of the stars of last season’s Women’s Super League campaign, the summer involves not only the World Cup but the move of a lifetime. The former Manchester United defender is off to Barcelona Femeni, where she trained as a child; she left aged 18 when it was clear first-team football was not forthcoming. Six years later, via spells at Madrid CFF and Levante, she returns as one of Europe’s best full-backs.
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“I left (…) with the mindset I could come back,” she said upon her United departure. “For me, Barca has always been in my heart and it’s not easy to say no.”
We meet in the coffee shop of Batlle’s Manchester apartment building back in late May, a few days before United wrap up their domestic season with the 1-0 win over Liverpool that saw them finish second behind Chelsea. Over the past three years, Batlle has built a home here, in a district popular with the city’s female players. She is understated but likeable, insisting on paying for the drinks, offering to carry my bags back to the tram stop. Soon, she will be packing her own.
Batlle says it is uncommon for Spain’s female footballers to leave the country but she had always had ambitions to move abroad, eager that the experience make her more rounded as a footballer. A call from the former Manchester United manager Casey Stoney in 2020 opened up a route to England; jumping at the chance, Batlle felt the first tug of reservation when she stepped off the plane in England and realised what it meant, aged 20, to move to a country where you can’t speak the native language and very few people can speak yours. Successive lockdowns restricted her to two trips home in her first season.
“I was crying,” she says. “I was like, ‘What am I doing with my life?’. And I was scared, you know? It was crazy. I wasn’t with my family. I couldn’t go home. There were moments that it was really, really hard. Just… I was brave as well.” Did she ever think about leaving? “I’ve never thought about the decision to go back, or to regret anything.”
United, she says, looked after her. Stoney was constantly asking her how she felt. The club gave Batlle a translator, who joined the team for meetings and stood by Stoney on the touchline. “I remember we were playing against Reading — we won — and in the last minute, Casey was screaming to me. And I didn’t understand it. And the translator was screaming to me, saying the same but in Spanish. Now I laugh, but at that moment…”
Batlle’s return to Barcelona — the club she grew up supporting — does not obscure the depth of her feelings towards Manchester and its people. After that shaky first season, she couldn’t have been happier. “For me now — it’s like home,” she says. “We have a love, a team, that is incredible.” Is the Manchester accent easy to understand? “Now, it’s familiar for me. It’s easy for me. But I have friends — my friend came from Miami and she speaks English.” That friend, she says, “didn’t understand anything they said”.
She began playing football recreationally aged six. They never had a goalkeeper so they rotated — Batlle describes her stint as “so bad, so bad” — before finding her home as a winger. As is often the way, the boys she played with in the park treated her normally. Parents, as is often the case, were not always so receptive. “Because I had short hair, when I was playing with the girls, some parents were screaming to me: ‘She’s not a girl! She can’t be playing here. She’s too good to be a girl’.”

She probably would have forgone football entirely had it not been for the big brother, Joan, three years older, who played first. “I was doing… How you say? I don’t know how you say it in English.” She whips her phone from her pocket and opens a translation app. Skating, it offers. “No ice,” she adds.
“Like this?” I open Google Images and she releases a peal of laughter at the sight of rollerblades. They dominated her life until she took up football properly at six, signing for Barcelona at 11, where she mastered the club’s world-famous playing style, learning how to find the spaces in which the ball is best enjoyed. Those traits have lingered — even when deep by her own corner flag, she likes to find a more methodical, skilful way to “get out of those situations” before resorting to “kicking the ball away”.
She grew up admiring Dani Alves and defaults to analysing the full-backs — “how they move, the attacking, defending, where they cross from” — whenever she watches a game during her downtime. Lucy Bronze and Marta Torrejon have provided further inspiration, although she only began analysing her own play via video once she was at Levante. Now, she does so for The Athletic.
Manchester United 3-2 Brighton, April 15, 2023
The commentator has it right: “Batlle just keeps on going here — keeps on going.” Largely unopposed, she dribbles from the halfway line and crosses at the byline for Leah Galton to turn home.
Can you talk about the build-up here as you come up against a player… What’s going through your head?
This is the first minute of the second half. I can remember Marc (Skinner, Manchester United manager) was telling us in the half-time speech that he wanted us to build and just to drive at them because they were quite close and narrow. And we had to choose more with the ball instead of trying to pass more. It was two minutes after that speech. So I thought: well, I’m going to just start to drive.
I really like to do that touch — the first one, which is controlling, charging direction quickly. I start to drive, start to drive. Go to the full-back. She is jumping me and I do long touches. I’m faster, so it makes me still go with the flow, with the ball. I just saw Leah, and I thought that she can go across, front post, which she does.
That touch before the cross is a bit of a heavier touch. Once you’ve shifted the ball, do you know you’re faster than her?
I just thought to do a big touch and then make time to have a look and then see if Leah’s going to be there. In that case, it’s Leah, but sometimes, it’s (Alessia) Russo. It gives me time to think about what’s going to be next.
Have you always liked running at players and taking players on?
No. I mean, if you see when I came here… in Spain, it’s more often pass, pass. You don’t really run with the ball. I’ve just learned in England that sometimes, you can carry the ball and just go.
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Did Casey or Marc say that to you?
It was Marc and Martin (Ho, former United Women first-team coach). They said to me: ‘Ona, you are really good. You have the speed. You can carry the ball as much as possible’. They asked me to do it, basically.
So in Barcelona, when you grew up in the academy, and you said it was pass, pass, pass, was a lot of that about close control and dribbling as well?
Not as much. Definitely not. For that reason, sometimes at the beginning when they were asking me, I was like, I don’t know if that’s my style. But then I just really enjoyed it.
Lewes 1-3 Manchester United, March 19, 2023
After receiving the ball out wide from Ella Toone, Batlle picks out Vilde Boe Risa to head home from close range.
That’s a really good first-time cross. Why did you hit that first time?
I remember that. When I play with Tooney (Ella Toone), I know that she is going to be more inside. In that moment, I was holding in the outside, just for her to pass it in front of me. So by the time I’m almost in the line, I just thought I didn’t have that time. I saw as well that we had two, three players in the box, so I thought I wanted to do it with the first touch with a strong pass, to make sure it was not easy for the defender.
You’re a defender. When you attack, do you think about what annoys you as a defender and make sure you do those things?
Yeah, actually, sometimes. For example, when it’s a really hard ball in front of the back line. A ball against Aston Villa, for example — that kind of ball is really hard to defend because the defenders are running backwards, facing our own goal. That makes it hard because a lot of own goals are made from them, because the ball is in between the ’keeper and the defenders.
Before, I didn’t think like that. Martin and Marc kept saying to me about crosses: how to do it, which is the most dangerous for the defender, the speed and it depends on the angle you are on the pitch, how do you drive the ball?
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For example, in the last game that we played against Manchester City — they have really good wingers. The crosses from Chloe Kelly were really hard to defend. That is what I’m looking to because I feel like I want as well to be a good defender who is going to attack.
How often do you practise crosses?
I’ve been practising crossing these past two years a lot, a lot, a lot. It’s crazy. Since last year, I didn’t play as much on the right, so I used to play on the left more. When I was on the right, I wasn’t a high attacker. That’s the thing I didn’t have. So I started to be more attacking. I mean, I’m right-footed. I’m always better with the right. I was more like a left full-back going inside because I really like to be connecting with the midfield and with the No 9. I remember the first year I came, I was playing on the left with Leah (Galton). Leah was more wide, and I was more going in. Since last year, I started to do more.
I want to talk about your defending. In a lot of the clips of your defending, you’re really high up the pitch. A lot of your defensive play actually comes in the opponent’s half.
I’m really front-foot. When I see someone in front of me that I can go to and cut the ball, cut the pass that they are trying to do… it’s instant. I just try to be as big as possible to make them feel scared enough to then try to cut the line out, to cut the counter-attack that they try to do. Sometimes we say it’s really good when we have the ball higher up to try to do the counter-attack as soon as possible because then they cannot leave their third. Get as high as possible. If not, they have all the space in behind us, which can be really dangerous.
Manchester United 5-0 Aston Villa, December 3, 2022
What a finish from @OnaBatlle 🤩
Shining at Old Trafford for @ManUtdWomen!#BarclaysWSL pic.twitter.com/NDBjaBUl0D
— Barclays Women’s Super League (@BarclaysWSL) December 4, 2022
Do you want to talk me through this one?
In that game, we had a lot of space in between the full-back and then the centre-back. I was wanting the ball in front because I usually cross from there. But then I just looked on the position (of the defenders), looked to the goal and I said, ‘I’m going to shoot’. And it was a really good strike.
You’re pointing for the ball there and you’re cutting inside. What made you make that run?
The space. There’s a massive gap between them. We usually look for the space to then run. As I have a look, I just see the goal.
Did you know that that player was coming right behind you on your shoulder?
Not really. By the time I have the control, I have a look and I think I’m quite close. I’m close enough to strike it and go to goal.
So what was the feeling when that went in?
It was satisfying because it was a really good strike — you know when you touch the ball and you know it’s going to go hard? At Old Trafford, the atmosphere was really good. We just wanted to enjoy it and give everything. I always wanted to be there, or even, someday, play there.
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What are your favourite memories of Manchester United?
Wembley, for example, is a really nice memory even though we lost (against Chelsea in the 2023 FA Cup final). It was amazing to play with United in the final with all the fans. The fans are amazing.
It’s so special to be a Man United player just because the fans are so loud you can almost feel them when you’re out on the pitch. I think it’s one of the most special things that I will take from my time in Manchester — the people.
Faroe Islands 0-10 Spain, September 16, 2021
Batlle receives the ball on the edge of the 18-yard box. Pulling past the defender, she sweeps the ball towards the box from the byline for team-mate Amaiur Sarriegi to chip goalkeeper Oluva Joensen.
Can you talk me through this one?
On the left, I want as to go wide and higher, but I keep driving with my right. That’s what gives me time to have a look and to see. I have all the space to keep driving. I drive to her, and then I go wide. And then I see my team-mate going front post and she’s making the space in behind. Sometimes, when you are in the last line, you can just pull it back for someone to run on to.
So it’s almost you going as far left as you can because then you can use your stronger foot to cut in and be more dangerous. When you take on players, what do you look for? What makes you decide to cut left or right?
I mean, sometimes, when you’re driving, you drive to the player to attract them to then — if they are facing one way or the other — just go. Because if you are far away from a player, and you start to run to the right, they’re going to cut you easily. So it’s something that I like: to go to them, and then, when you are close enough, just cut in with the change of direction. Try to make them commit early. I drag them, then do the long pass, the long touch, then have a look: where is the space? Then pass it in the space.
This might sound like a very strange question but, in your head, does all that happen really quickly? Or is it almost like time goes a bit slower?
I just feel, when I’m playing, it seems slower than what it looks like. I don’t know why. When you are running or when you are playing, it just feels that more clear. I don’t know how to say it, but slower. But that’s practice and playing and just doing it. It comes better.
Manchester United 2-1 Manchester City, November 17, 2021
From the halfway line, Galton plays the ball into Batlle’s path deep into Manchester City’s half. She takes two smaller touches with her right foot before a heavier touch loses Ruby Mace. She finds Russo, whose shot is saved, then Batlle closes down Demi Stokes, shoulder barges her off the ball, turns and finishes into the far corner with her left foot.
Tell me about this run…
First of all, when I got the ball, I go to her. I do two touches quick, to fix her, to make her do a step there, when I touch the ball there.
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So she takes that half-step back.
It makes me be quick. I just got the space quicker.
What made you close down the second ball?
Because I was running when I see the ball there, I’m quick enough to react to go to the ball. And then I just thought, ‘I have to go hard to her’. They came in from the left, trying to go to the second ball.
Have you always been a really quick player?
I got better, with practice, a specific type of exercise and work. I got better at running. If you do a specific work, if you do the right things, you can develop the technique — not even (to be) stronger, but sometimes it is just running technique. When I went to Madrid, I started to do it more. I got quicker, and in the acceleration as well.
The My Game In My Words series is part of a partnership with Google Pixel. The Athletic maintains full editorial independence. Partners have no control over or input into the reporting or editing process and do not review stories before publication.
(Top photo: Getty Images; design: Rachel Orr)
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