The photograph told the story before anyone said a word: five Barca players, five armbands, and Alexia Putellas not among them. Ahead of Friday night’s squad presentation at the Femeni Joan Gamper Trophy, Mundo Deportivo report that Patri Guijarro is the new first captain of Barca Femeni, with Aitana Bonmati and Caroline Graham Hansen joining a leadership group that grows from four to five.
It is the most significant change in the dressing room’s internal order in five years, and it lands on the eve of the first appearance of the season for the reigning quadruple winners.
Patri Guijarro leads a new five
According to Mundo Deportivo, the ranking now reads Patri Guijarro first, Marta Torrejon second, Irene Paredes third, then Aitana Bonmati and Graham Hansen. Guijarro was third in the hierarchy last season, behind Putellas, Torrejon and Paredes; she moves to the top of a group that will, per the report, take dressing-room decisions collectively rather than through one voice.
Every name in it has serious mileage in blaugrana. Guijarro is starting her 12th season at the club, having arrived from Collerense in 2015. Torrejon, signed from Espanyol in 2013, begins her 14th consecutive campaign. Paredes, who joined from Paris Saint-Germain in 2021, is into her sixth year. And Bonmati — 28, three Ballons d’Or, the only La Masia graduate of the incoming pair — has been at Barca for 15 seasons in total, 12 of them with the first team. More than half her life.
The end of the Alexia era
Putellas had been the team’s principal captain and spokesperson since 2021-22, when she took over from Vicky Losada after Losada left the club. Mundo Deportivo’s report does not set out the reasoning behind the change, and there has been no public explanation from the club, so this is a reported reshuffle rather than an announced one — treat it as such until the club speaks.
What is not in doubt is what the armband has meant at this club. Putellas wore it through the most dominant period in the history of Spanish women’s football, a run that ended last season with a historic quadruple: Liga F, the Copa de la Reina, the Supercopa and a Women’s Champions League won 4-0 against Lyon in May.
Friday at the Gamper
The five will be together on Friday night for the fifth edition of the Femeni Joan Gamper Trophy, kicking off at 20:00 CEST and shown on TV3 and Barca Play. Pere Romeu’s side face Brighton & Hove Albion, and before kick-off the club will present the 2026-27 squad, with speeches from the head coach and from Guijarro in her new role as first captain — her first public act as the leader of the group. Kerolin, the club’s record signing, was unveiled earlier this week ahead of the same fixture.
There is a neat symmetry with the men’s side, where Raphinha delivered his first captain’s speech at the Gamper on Wednesday. Two Gampers, two new first captains, one week.
Whether Guijarro’s promotion is a straightforward reward for a decade of service or the first visible sign of a wider changing of the guard in the Femeni dressing room, Friday night will offer the first clue. She has the armband, the microphone and a stadium waiting. The rest can follow.
