Salma Paralluelo interview: ‘I couldn’t give my all due to the ache. I needed to cease’

The Athletic has reside protection of the Germany vs Spain semifinal on the 2025 UEFA Girls’s Euros.

When Salma Paralluelo returned from the Olympics final summer time, she knew one thing needed to change.

The winger had performed soccer persistently ever since giving up a promising athletics profession in 2022 to affix Barcelona however the ache was turning into an excessive amount of and her physique was struggling to deal with adapting to the totally different necessities of the game.

“It’s exhausting to cease taking part in however I had reached a degree the place I simply needed to settle for it,“ Paralluelo tells The Athletic. ”I noticed that (carrying on) wasn’t going to do me any good. I wasn’t going to have the ability to carry out or take pleasure in myself on the pitch.

“It’s upsetting to see your team-mates taking part in with out you, to be away from the group, however I knew it was what I needed to do at that second.”

The Barcelona ahead, now 21, took 4 months out and is now again to full health, showing in her second main match with Spain.

That is the story of why she took the unconventional step to pre-emptively cease taking part in, and the way she bounced again simply in time to assist Spain at Euro 2025.

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When Paralluelo was given the prospect to affix Barcelona in the summertime of 2022, she was pressured to decide on between the 2 sports activities she had competed in all through her youth: soccer and athletics. Till then, she had performed for Villarreal, who allowed her to mix each passions. However when the Catalan membership got here calling, she selected soccer.

Even earlier than then, her means had put her within the highlight, regardless of not but taking part in for a membership of Barca’s calibre. She was one of many first gamers in Spanish girls’s soccer to generate main hype lengthy earlier than turning 18. Her athletic physique, pace and dribbling means made her an eye catching prospect, and one who many groups needed to signal.

Though Paralluelo can play as a centre-forward or on the precise, her pure habitat is on the left wing.

On the 2023 World Cup in Australia and New Zealand, she received the match’s award for greatest younger participant. She was solely 19 however was essential for Spain. She scored a 111th-minute winner towards the Netherlands within the quarter-final, then gave her aspect an 81st-minute lead towards Sweden within the semi-final. She then began the ultimate in Sydney, the place Spain beat reigning European champions England to safe their first Girls’s World Cup.

If that was a summer time of pleasure, 2024 was considered one of disappointment. Spain’s girls went to their first Olympic soccer match with nice expectations, however left empty-handed after dropping to Brazil within the semi-final, then Germany within the bronze-medal match. On prime of all that, Paralluelo’s physique was telling her sufficient was sufficient.

To know her ache, we’ve to return to the times when she was nonetheless taking part in for Villarreal and coaching and competing in athletics. Then she suffered one of many worst accidents a footballer can expertise.

“In 2021, I injured my ACL (anterior cruciate ligament),” she says throughout an interview in Lausanne, the place Spain have arrange camp for Euro 2025. “After I ultimately returned to taking part in, I may really feel slight discomfort in my patella, however I didn’t pay a lot consideration on the time. By the point I arrived at Barca (in 2022), the discomfort was fairly noticeable. I used to be coaching in ache, figuring out within the fitness center in ache and it was turning into increasingly more limiting. By the Olympics, I reached a essential level.

“Enjoying via the ache solely made it worse, and I used to be at excessive threat of harm. I couldn’t give my all due to the ache.

“That’s once I determined to cease. Different gamers had advised me how severe it was, that I ought to have stopped earlier. However due to my youth, as a result of I didn’t need to miss out on cool issues just like the Champions League and the World Cup, I made a decision simply to maintain taking part in.”

When she made the choice, she discovered help from her membership. Barca gave her all the pieces she wanted to get well with out speeding.

“They didn’t put any strain on me and helped me realise that I used to be doing the precise factor, that I’d get well and have a greater future,” she provides.

“I’ve discovered that generally it’s a must to put your self first, method issues sensibly and take into consideration the longer term, not simply what you’ve gotten within the current. The vital factor is to really feel snug on the pitch and be in good long-term well being, moderately than doing all the pieces you possibly can to be on the pitch.”

By the point she returned to Barca in mid-December, the ache she had been feeling for thus lengthy had utterly disappeared.

“Earlier than, I had been coaching in a lot ache that I used to be avoiding guaranteeing actions. I used to be desirous about what to keep away from doing so it wouldn’t damage, as a substitute of simply desirous about taking part in soccer. Now I’m in a lot much less ache.”

One among Paralluelo’s strengths is her pace and explosive play, one thing that the harm prevented her from exploiting.

“It was irritating to exit on the pitch and never carry out in addition to I needed. You’ll be able to have good video games and good spells but it surely was one thing I didn’t actually take pleasure in. I used to be restricted.”

Paralluelo has spent her entire life getting ready for a sport that’s performed for 90 minutes, soccer, and one other to compete at her greatest for 40 seconds, athletics.

She competed in athletics at a excessive stage. Her coach Felix Lagunas advised The Athletic in 2023 that “if she had chosen athletics and accidents had revered her, she would have ended up in an athletics closing on the Olympic Video games for positive”.

“You’ll have heard of Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, who broke the world document within the 400-metre hurdles. Or Allyson Felix, who dominated the 200m and 400m throughout her time. Nicely, Salma — at her age, with out coaching — was attaining higher instances than each of them,” he stated.

When she stopped coaching in athletics, she realised she needed to readjust the every day routine she had adopted for years. She additionally needed to get used to life away from a sport that had performed such an vital function for thus lengthy. “At first, I actually missed the athlete a part of me,” she says. “It’s a matter of adapting to soccer, altering your mindset. In the long run, I needed to give 100 per cent to at least one sport. I needed to neglect about athletics.”

Adjusting her coaching was a gradual course of.

“In the long run, competitors calls for lots from you, however along with the employees, myself and the bodily trainers, we made that adjustment,” she says.

“I used to be coming from coaching (soccer) two days per week and the opposite days I used to be doing athletics, after which I went to coaching day-after-day with a group as demanding as Barca, and I suffered from these adjustments.”

Regardless of her younger age, her document is enviable. With Spain, she has received each World Cup she has performed in: under-17 (2018), under-20 (2022) and senior (2023), in addition to the Nations League in 2024. With Barca, she already has two Champions League titles (2022-23 and 2023-24), three Liga F titles, two Copa de la Reina titles and two Supercopas de Espana.

Now she has the prospect to raise one of many few soccer trophies she has not but received: the senior European Championship (she received the under-17 title in 2018).

“I’ve been skilled issues from a really younger age that you may’t actually think about experiencing so early on,” she says. “However you consider persevering with, in regards to the ambition and motivation to repeat one thing. That’s additionally a stimulus for all of us as athletes, and much more so on this group, and you may inform that we nonetheless have the European Championship and the Olympic Video games to look ahead to as a gaggle. However in the long run, what counts every year is the competitors you’ve gotten. What you’ve already carried out is previously.”

On this match, she has solely began towards Italy, however her means to interrupt down the wings makes her an attention-grabbing participant for head coach Montse Tome going into Wednesday’s semi-final towards Germany in Zurich. Tome solely reveals her group to the gamers on the day of the sport.

“The job of all of the gamers is to be prepared at any time when it’s time to enter battle,” Paralluelo says.

Does she see herself within the closing?

“Not but,” she replies. “First, Germany.”

(Prime picture: Gerrit van Keulen/Getty Photos)