The rise of Vicky Lopez: Barcelona's best teenage footballer in women's football

To ask Giraldez what stood out about Lopez all those years ago is to prompt him to reel off a near-never-ending list. “I remember she was playing in the middle, but she was able to have success in one-v-one situations, shooting with the left and with the right,” he recalls. “I remember she could put crosses in with the right and with the left, at U12 level. For [senior players], that is very, very difficult, and she could do it. I remember beautiful last passes, scoring goals, beating opponents in one-v-one, one-v-two, one-v-three [situations].

“She was leading the team even in terms of personality, in terms of position. I think the capacity that she had, in possession and out of possession, showed why she was the best in that moment. It was too easy to decide that she was the best player at her age.”

That ability to do so much so well has stuck with Lopez as she has risen through the ranks. She did not just stand out at U12 level; she has continued to in each age category, even when playing up and, most significantly, even when stepping into the senior game.

That first foray onto the very highest level would come on the first weekend of the 2021-22 Liga F season. Having turned 15 in the summer, Lopez was then eligible to play in the Spanish top-flight and Madrid CFF, whom she joined in 2015, did not hesitate to give her the opportunity. Aged 15 years and 41 days, she made history as the division’s youngest-ever player.

But there was a balance to strike. Lopez was incredibly talented and, in that sense, ready to take this step into the senior game. But she was also a 15-year-old girl who had no prior experience of the level, especially of its physicality. Fortunately, her coaches understood this, even if, through her eagerness, the youngster herself didn’t always.

“She was very young and in development, so I considered that, at a conditional level, we had to do a good job with her to avoid injuries, at that time and in the future,” Maria Pry, who took over at Madrid CFF midway through that 2021-22 season, tells GOAL. “She didn't understand it at first because she always wanted to play, but I made her see that the important thing in football is to get there and stay there, and for that to happen she had to arrive without discomfort or injury.”

That is not to criticise Lopez’s attitude or character, with Pry keen to stress that she was always a player who made things “very easy” for her coaches because of how she “always wants to improve and learn”. But the right guidance is necessary with youngsters. Lopez had that in Madrid, where she made eight first-team appearances during her debut campaign, as well as 18 for the B team in the second division.

Despite not being in the spotlight in Liga F on a weekly basis, big clubs were watching Lopez closely. Barcelona’s interest became known to Pry midway through the 2021-22 campaign and she was not surprised whatsoever by it. “She was the best young talent there was in Spain,” she explains. Lopez’s performances at May’s U17 Euros reiterated that fact and, soon enough, she would bring her seven-year association with Madrid CFF to an end. On her 16th birthday, she was unveiled as a Barcelona player.

It was a move that put Giraldez and Lopez on the same team, with the former Catalan Federation coach now leading Barca. Having followed her development over the years, Giraldez could have hardly rated the 16-year-old more highly – and yet, working with her on a day-to-day basis, he saw “much more” from her.

“For me, the biggest surprise was about her personality, to do the same things that she was doing when she was young. She could do the same things when she was working with the best players in the world,” he explained. “That was also a big surprise for me in pre-season. Being so young, she was able to do exactly the same things as the players in the first team. Usually you have to modify and do a different part of the training because they are not ready to - but she was ready.

“And the second thing, the capacity that she had, being so young, to play with the left and with the right foot. It was a big, big surprise, better than other players that in that moment were working in the first team. I said, 'Oh my God, she's brilliant'.”

Initially signed to train and play with Barcelona’s B team, which competes in the second division, Lopez would be brought into first-team training soon enough, and by the end of her first campaign in Catalonia, she had made 13 appearances – all before turning 17 years old. That was also despite the U17 World Cup, at which Lopez won the Golden Ball after helping Spain lift the title, running through the first two months of the season.

It laid a nice foundation for her to really take off the following year – and take off she did. The teenager was with the first team for the whole campaign, and her opportunities came thick and fast as Barcelona won an historic first quadruple on the women’s side. Perhaps most impressive about her explosion into the first team was not her age or how she performed her game-changing qualities on the biggest stage, but how she adapted so quickly to the club’s unique style.

Speaking to GOAL previously about the impact of Norway winger Caroline Graham Hansen, Giraldez explained how “it is not so easy for the foreign players” to grasp the timing, the rhythm and everything that is needed to be part of Barca’s play, while marvelling at how the winger herself “had it” upon arrival. When asked about Lopez’s adaptation to this, as a player from a different youth system and one still in her formative years, Giraldez accepts that she needed to improve her rhythm a little but, otherwise, it was “easy”, because of how good she is.

“Try to do the same things, but quicker,” he says, explaining what Lopez needed to improve, and did improve, in his time with her, before he left to take charge of the Washington Spirit in the summer of 2024. “She can keep improving, for sure, but she understands that if in U16s you have one second, when you are getting older, you have half the time. So, try to do the same things and try to scan before you receive the ball, advance the decision that you were going to make with the ball, make the first touch shorter to make sure that you are going to play the next pass quicker. It's all about the rhythm and I think she's getting it.”

Lopez is getting a lot of other things right, too. Pry - now an opponent, as the sporting director at Real Betis - has noticed that the teenager has developed the defensive side of her game in recent months, praising “her ability to sacrifice and work without the ball”. Her versatility has also had to go to new levels, with her playing regularly on the wing as well as in midfield. “She has an amazing potential to do different things, not just playing between lines,” Giraldez believes.

And she is learning these skills in an environment that contains many of the very best players in the world – some of whom are taking her under their wing and only enriching her development. “It’s good to help her a little in this process, in what I have experienced and what I would have liked to have known at that time,” Alexia Putellas, Barcelona’s two-time Ballon d’Or winner, said of Lopez last year.

Indeed, the 18-year-old cites Putellas as a role model, and the wholesomeness of their relationship was evident when Lopez won the 2024 Golden Girl award. “Alexia was super happy,” Lopez told reporters at the time. “It touched my heart to see her so excited for me. I’m grateful to have her support. I admire everything that she does.”

This is not just limited to the women’s team, either. When Lamine Yamal won the Golden Boy award at the same time, it highlighted the outstanding job Barcelona does in youth development across the board. It also offered a window into the community that exists between departments at the club. "We have a good relationship,” Lopez told Mundo Deportivo of Yamal. “We don't talk every day, but we have a good relationship. I always watch him play and I tell him that he's crazy, and I hope he stays crazy for many more years.”

When asked what Yamal says to her, Lopez’s response felt significant. “He pushes me,” she replied. “He pushes me.”

This is what Lopez wanted at Barcelona. She wanted the best environment to learn, to grow and to develop. In the best team in Europe, as Barca’s back-to-back Champions League titles show, and now breaking into the senior national team with Spain, themselves world champions, it’s fair to say her progress is coming along nicely.

It does mean, however, that the pressure continues to grow. “I have no doubt that she can become one of the best players in the world,” Pry says, a belief shared by most onlookers. “But she has to know the right path, as she is doing so far. In our sport, you can't take anything for granted, but it points to her being an important player at world level.”

Fortunately, Lopez doesn’t appear to be burdened by any of that expectation. “The pressure is coming when you are getting older, when you're having more responsibility, when you’re having the chance to play for Barca, for example, at only 16 years old,” Giraldez notes. “I think that moment is very challenging.

“But I think the capacity that she has as a player and as a person to cope with the pressure is... I do not think she has a roof. She's an amazing player. Also, she has the personality to cope with the pressure, so I don't think that she feels that because she knows that she's good, but I don't think that she feels pressure about it.”

That appears to be reflected in Lopez’s play. Despite the stakes of the games she is involved in now, despite the weight that comes with wearing the badges she does and despite the hard work it has taken to get to this position, the 18-year-old has not lost the joy with which she plays.

Pry describes Lopez's love of the game as “contagious”, as something which she “passes on” to the players around her. “Happy” is the first word that comes to mind for Giraldez when he talks about her as a person.

“She likes to enjoy, she likes to play,” he says. “When you are playing with your friends on the street, I think she feels something like that when she's playing football. She does the same things when she is training with the best players in the world.”