Caroline Graham Hansen is one of the best football players in the world and she is a leading contender for the coveted Ballon d’Or award, but she can still remember how she felt about the Beautiful Game when she saw her dad watching it on television at their home in Norway.
“Honestly, I thought it was very boring,” she told CNN Sport, but everything changed at the age of five or six when she got a ball at her feet. “I don’t know when I fell in love with the game, but I just remember not really being interested to wanting to play it every day.”
Graham Hansen now plays on the wing for the all-conquering Barcelona Femení team, a life she could never have imagined as she was developing as a youth player in Scandinavia.
“There were not many girls playing when I grew up,” she explained, “so I either played with the boys or I played with no one. And when you’re a kid, I don’t think you think so much about gender, you just want to play with the best players.”
Playing in boys’ teams in boys leagues might have been the only way for Graham Hansen to start out in the game, but it was also an environment she thrived in, and everybody shared the same dreams.
“I was going to play for Barcelona or one of the biggest clubs when I grew up,” she said, adding, “but for the men’s side. You see the guys you’re playing with, and that you are equally as good or a bit better. And if they can do it, I can also have this dream.”
Graham Hansen is 29 years of age and the women’s game has transformed during her career. In 2015, when she was in her second year playing for Wolfsburg in Germany, Barcelona Femení had only just turned professional. She joined them four years later and clearly recalls donning the shirt.
“I still remember the first time I did it, it was like, ‘Is this for real?’” She recalled wearing the shirt as a child, playing in the garden with her friends, adding, “It’s special because it doesn’t get any bigger than this, in my opinion. And every time I put it on, I pinch myself because I know it’s not going to last forever.”
During her time at Wolfsburg, Graham Hansen won eight trophies, but her time in Germany was marred by a series of knee and leg injuries which tested her love of the game. She says that she had to find a way of coping with being on the sidelines for extended periods of time.
“The key was to find fun in being injured, occupy your mind with something that gives you joy because otherwise what’s going to kill you is sitting there watching everybody else doing what you wanted or were supposed to do.”
Her subsequent move to Barça has been liberating because she says the coaches play to her strengths, allowing her to run at opponents and take them on, knowing that she is surrounded by a star-studded supporting cast of players.
“Barcelona has a very specific style of play,” she added, “which is a joy to be a part of and I guess a joy for people to watch as well.”
Barcelona Femení has proved not only to be the most successful team of this generation in Europe, but also the most popular. In 2022, Graham Hansen was on the scoresheet as Barça thrashed eternal rival Real Madrid in the quarterfinal of the Champions League at the Camp Nou in front of a world record crowd of 91,553 fans for a women’s football match. She was on target again in the semifinal when Barça broke the record again, this time with 91,648 cheering on.
Graham Hansen says that it wasn’t just the enormous crowds that were noteworthy, but the fans’ level of engagement and support: “Normally, like when it’s a big crowd in the women’s football game, you hear people talking, and to have that experience where it was just so loud for 90 minutes people singing, really cheering for you, was like a whole new experience.
“I don’t know how to explain that feeling other than goosebumps. Barça fans have shown that you can do it repeatedly and now you see all over Europe teams in England and Germany are [also] able to do this.”
Last season, those fans never stopped cheering as Barcelona won four trophies and every competition it entered. It was a glittering haul that included a fifth consecutive domestic Liga F title and a third Champions League title in just four seasons.
Graham Hansen scored 32 goals in only 40 games and, with an additional 28 assists, she led her team with a total of 60 goal contributions. That is why she is one of seven players from last season’s squad to be shortlisted for the Ballon d’Or Féminin, and Graham Hansen thinks that the number could have been even higher.
“I think we feel like we should have had more players there because we see each other every day and we see the quality,” she said.
Barcelona has won the last three Ballon d’Ors Féminin – Alexia Putellas in 2021 and 2022, Aitana Bonmatí in 2023 – but Graham Hansen says they’re not in competition with each other for the award. If anything, the recognition only confirms the strength and success of what remains a humble team.
“A lot of the players came from nothing and they still have this mentality that, ‘OK, we have good quality on the field, but we need to put it together and what we need is to work hard.’”
They know that the competition is getting tougher and that they will have to keep elevating their game to stay out in front, but Hansen says that “you’re always allowed to try.” And whatever happens, she knows that she has far exceeded the possibilities that lay ahead of her as a young girl.
“I don’t think I would believe it,” she concluded. “I wouldn’t think that it would be possible to play for Barcelona. They didn’t even have a team when I was 13 or 14 years old. It sounds like a dream I could have had if I were a boy and not a girl. Now, it’s possible, and it’s so cool!”