Who is Manchester United’s Ona Batlle?
Full-back playing Ona Batlle Pascual, was born in Vilassar de Mar, Catalonia, Spain on the 10th of June 1999. Being a province town in Barcelona, Batlle started playing football with Vilassar de Mar and in 2011 she was scouted by FC Barcelona during a match with the Catalonia Under-12 team. As she joined FC Barcelona’s youth program La Masia, she progressed through the ranks and earned her promotion to Barcelona B, which is Barcelona’s highest level youth team and they played in the Segunda División in 2014.
She made her International youth career debut in 2015 as she started in four of the five games in the tournament helping Spain win the 2015 UEFA Women’s Under-17 Championship and going onto finishing as runners up in 2016 as they lost to Germany on penalties in the final.
She was called up to the first team in 2016 and was an unused substitute in the clubs Champions League game against FC Twente. In the following summer, Barcelona changed their focus to recruiting high profile senior players, which made it more difficult for youth players to break through into the first team, which left Batlle as one of seven La Masia players to leave the club to pursue senior first-team opportunities with other clubs.
After leaving Barcelona she represented Spain at the 2017 UEFA Women’s Under-19 Championship as they won the tournament with a stoppage time goal against France. She started every game in the tournament and was selected as one of the seven Spanish players selected to the team of the tournament.
In July 2017, she signed to Madrid CFF which was the clubs first signing following their promotion to the Primera División. She made her senior debut during the club’s first Primera División match as a substitute for Laura del Rio in their 1-1 draw against Levante. She cemented her goal of being a starting team player as she played in 28 of the 30 league matches including 26 starts for the club as they ended their season campaign in tenth place.
Only spending one season with Madrid, she signed with Levante in June 2018. Due to Spain’s success in previous tournaments, they were qualified for the 2018 FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup, however Batlle suffered an injury during the tournament in the August, delaying her debut for newly signed club Levante. She eventually made her first club appearance as a substitute in a 3-2 away win to former club Madrid CFF in the December of that year. She also scored her first Primera División goal in the same month in the clubs win over Logroño. After scoring 3 goals out of her 39 appearances for the club, Batlle announced that she wouldn’t be renewing her contract with Levante and becoming a free agent.
In May of 2019, she made her senior international debut in a friendly against Cameroon coming on as a substitute for Eunate Arraiza at half-time but was left out of the 23 player roster for the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup. However, she was called up to Spain’s squad in her first senior international tournament opportunity in the 2020 SheBelieves Cup. She started the first two matches of the tournament as they won against Japan but lost to reigning World Champion United States as the country finished second in their debut appearance.
In July of 2020, Ona signed a two-year contract with an option for a third with English FA WSL club Manchester United. With a new season starting, Batlle made her debut on the 6th of September that same year in their 1-1 draw against defending champions Chelsea. During her first season for the club, she appeared in 23 of United’s 27 games and was named Women’s Player of the Season at the end of the campaign. She went onto score her first goal for the club during their first league game of the 2021-22 season against Reading tallying up her appearances to 40 but leaving her goal accumulation at 1.