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

Jonatan Giraldez remembers, vividly, the first time he saw Vicky Lopez play. It was at Spain’s annual youth tournament for Under-12s, in which all regions participate, and his Catalonia side were up against a Madrid team led by Lopez. They lost. Why? “Because Vicky was there,” he tells GOAL, matter-of-factly. “She was the most important player at that moment in the country at under 12. She was the most promising player in Spain.”

That hype has followed Lopez around for a long time. When she was 15 years old, she made her senior debut in the Spanish top-flight for Madrid CFF, increasing the expectation. She was the star of Spain’s U17s as they reached the final of the Euros and won the World Cup in 2022, despite being the youngest player in the entire squad. At the latter, she won the Golden Ball, as she would also do at the Euros a year later. Oh, and on her 16th birthday, she was announced as a Barcelona player.

This is the sort of hype, expectation and, well, pressure that can get to top prospects in a bad way. That’s not the case with Lopez. Now 18 years old, her performances for Barcelona, the European champions, and Spain, the world champions, only show signs that she will live up to it all.

“She has the personality to cope with the pressure,” Giraldez, head coach at Barca when the teenager arrived there, says. It’s part of the reason why she ranks at the very top of the women's NXGN 2025 list.