Caroline Graham Hansen (Oslo, 31 years old) holds the ball on which the name of her city is written. It is the ball from the Champions League final, in his native Norway, where he learned to dribble by clearing the snow from the streets. To reach it he will have to go to the Camp Nou this Sunday (4:30 p.m., Teledeporte and TV3) after the 1-1 draw in the first leg of the semifinals. It would be the sixth consecutive final for the Barça team (waiting for Olympique Lyonnes, who eliminated Arsenal). His future at the club, with his contract about to expire, is yet to be resolved. “We still need to sign,” he laughs about his renewal. He arrived seven years ago and always felt at home. “There are experiences here that you have to live through to know how excited they make you. I’m going to try to repeat this emotion as many times as I can: you never know how long you have left in your career,” she explains. Outside she is introverted, always away from the spotlight. But he smiles, speaks slowly, and anticipates cross-questions with genuine interest in the conversation. “I’m quite different from how people see me on the field,” he confesses.
Ask. How do you think they see you?
Answer. People think, because of how I play, that I’m arrogant. I have heard it sometimes. When you achieve things and it seems like you do it easily, like it’s nothing, it may seem that way. But I’m not like that outside: I always try to be polite, nice to everyone. And calm.
P. Does football force you into that duality?
R. You have to be one person inside the field and another outside, because inside it is a war. You have to get into wars, fight and do whatever it takes to try to win. But that stays in the field.
P. Outside he always preferred silence. Have you gotten used to the noise yet?
R. I don’t think it’s changed much. I do like these types of interviews, sitting down, talking about everything and taking time to do it. It’s more sincere, and you meet people. But there are press conferences, interviews flash after games, which depends on how they went, or are they going to break the bank… I don’t like that.
P. Because?
R. It makes me angry when people look for controversies to bring up just because, because that’s what sells many times.
P. It is also part of football.
R. I appreciate when I can talk to journalists who do their job well, respect us and want to know our opinion. If you ask me hard questions, then yes, it is a part of football. And you have all my respect for doing them. But there is a lot of controversy just because of the controversy that you notice coming from people who don’t really follow us. And there I can bite myself.
P. Is it difficult to be an introvert in the elite?
R. If you want the attention you think you deserve, yes. But if you can be calm with what you have, that’s fine.
P. He could have had a Ballon d’Or.
R. Many players on our team were able to win it. We play in a club that. You can say that at that moment, yes, I was able to win it, but I don’t see anything wrong with Aitana winning it, because she also had a wonderful season. And I was able to have the experience of being recognized as top two in the world.
P. Before they didn’t even nominate her.
R. It’s been a long road. For me it was a pride, because many of these things are also about a name, and I know that I don’t have that much. It doesn’t worry me either, because I see it in other colleagues on my team who also don’t have enough for what they really deserve. So I stay very calm.
P. Don’t you regret not having enhanced your marketing?
R. When you decide to do it, you also have to sell more things in your life. And there are things in my life that I don’t like to sell, I like to leave it for my privacy. But sometimes I think that really, if I wanted to sell the image sportingly, I could have done better. I try to get out of my way to play my marketing to teach young people that you don’t have to sell your life on Instagram to have the recognition you deserve for playing.
P. Seven years ago Barça reached its first European final. Right after you landed. How have you experienced evolution?
R. Everyone said that he only came to Barça for money, that the club was very far from winning anything. But from the first day I saw a lot of quality, a group with a lot of hunger, a very clear work plan. Since that day we have continued to improve, insist, failing along the way, as is normal, but always learning. I arrived when they had that experience of the final. They felt closer [de ganar] what people thought from the outside. I noticed this confidence from the first day. And you see everything that has happened in these seven years.
P. What did you learn?
R. I have learned a lot. People said that at Barça I wasn’t going to defend. Here, if you don’t know how to defend, you don’t get out of the round. And by enjoying yourself you gain confidence, and football, for me, is always played with your head: you can be as good as you want, but you really have to have the mentality to be able to bring out your level when it’s time.
P. Have you always been confident?
A. I have always worked on having it because of the type of game I try to play, which is very risky. And it is a sport of trying to make the other person fail so you can gain ground or goals.
P. Would not going to the final against Bayern be a failure?
R. No. It would hurt us, because our goal is to win the Champions League every year. But I wouldn’t say it’s a failure for everything we’ve achieved. People think that we will always arrive, but what we have done is not normal.
P. Does it bother you that it is assumed that they will always win?
R. It’s one thing to be a favorite, it’s another thing to be able to achieve it. Last year we didn’t win the final, it was one of the worst games of the year. That people think that Barça always wins is something positive for us because it means that we do something well, but we also have to live with that little pressure. But this does not change anything how we train, we do not relax and we continue to insist. Only in this way can you continue this wheel of continuing to win titles every year.
P. What would it mean for you to arrive in Oslo?
R. I don’t even want to think about it until we win this Sunday. But it’s been on my mind all season. It’s a dream. It’s the stadium I grew up in, a five-minute walk from my house, with every Sunday going there to watch my city’s men’s team. And suddenly you can play in the Champions League final and lift the cup in the same place where you grew up. It’s never really been a dream because I could never think it was possible in the world of women’s football that I grew up in.
Olympique, to the final
Olympique Lyonnes reached the Champions League final after eliminating the current champion, Mariona Caldentey’s Arsenal. The French team won in their stadium 3-1 in the second leg, with a final goal from Jule Brand in the 90th minute, and thus overturned the 2-1 with which the London team arrived in France. Olympique, led by Jonatan Giráldez, who was Barcelona coach, will play in its twelfth continental final. He has been European champion eight times, the last in 2022, against Barça.
