So the women's ballandor was awarded to Itana Bon Mati this week. And guess what? Nobody is happy about it.

My name is Claire Watkins. I am the host of the late sub. It is Wednesday, September 24th. And we're going to break down exactly what the ball and door is, why it matters, why it doesn't matter, what those structural flaws are and how we can make it better for the future

because we had some wonky stuff to discuss this week.

And as always in this show, we want to take a deeper dive.

Let's do it.

So this week, we saw the 2025 Ballandor given out to Spain and Barcelona midfielder Itana Ban Mati in her third consecutive honor.

She's the first player to ever win three Ballandors in a row.

Barcelona has been cleaning these up for five years now.

Alexia Piteas won it in 2021 and 2022.

Bun Matina with a three-year run in 2023, 24, and 25.

This period of time obviously coincides with Spain's World Cup win in 2023.

These are very good players who have won an immense amount of trophies since 2021.

But if you've been following online or you were watching or you kind of have seen the

commentary,

that might surprise you then to hear that this decision was somewhat controversial.

You saw a lot of people.

I was like I was joking about how it's rare that you can unify women's soccer fans on like

both sides of the Atlantic.

But you had kind of everybody up in an uproar about Ban Métis winning this award in 2025.

And you might wonder why, what is the Ball and door?

Why does it frustrate people?

Bon Manteau had a great year, right?

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