Andrea Falcón has announced her retirement from football at the age of 29, more than two years after playing her final competitive match.
The Canary Islander last appeared on 27 April 2024. She started Benfica’s 4-0 victory over Länk Vilaverdense and left the pitch in the 75th minute.
Six days later, the Portuguese club announced that she had suffered a sprain to her left knee during training.
The extent of the problem became clear at the beginning of the following pre-season. On 29 July, Benfica announced that Falcón would undergo revision arthroscopy of the anterior cruciate ligament graft in the same knee and said that she faced a lengthy recovery.
She never played again.
Falcón did not make a single appearance during the 2024/25 or 2025/26 seasons. Benfica announced on 1 June that her contract would expire at the end of that month, and she has now confirmed the end of her playing career.
“I gave everything and more,” she said in her farewell.
Four operations before her latest injury
Knee injuries repeatedly interrupted Andrea Falcón’s career.
In April 2017, during her first season with Atlético de Madrid, she tore the anterior cruciate ligament in her right knee during training. The operation also involved repairing a small tear in her lateral meniscus, and she did not return to competitive action until March 2018, eleven months later.
In December 2019, during her second spell with Barcelona, she suffered another anterior cruciate ligament tear, this time in her left knee. She underwent surgery on 3 January 2020 and received medical clearance in December of that year.
Three months later, she required another operation because of a cartilage injury in her right knee. She missed the remainder of the 2020/21 season.
When she returned to the Spain squad in October 2022, the Spanish Football Federation said that she had already undergone four operations and spent more than 900 days recovering. During that period, she even told her mother that she wanted to quit football.
Falcón returned to competitive action during a loan spell with Levante before continuing her career with Club América in Mexico and Benfica.
Nine goals and four trophies before she stopped playing
Her only season on the pitch in Portugal was also one of the most productive of her career.
Falcón made 34 appearances during the 2023/24 campaign, scoring nine goals and providing eight assists. Her honours with Benfica included the Portuguese league title, the Portuguese Cup, the League Cup and the Super Cup.
She left the Canary Islands at the age of 15 to join Barcelona. The Catalan club credit her with 41 competitive first-team appearances across two spells, from 2013 to 2016 and from 2019 to 2022.
Between those spells, she spent three seasons with Atlético de Madrid and won three consecutive league titles. She later represented Levante, Club América and Benfica.
Falcón was part of the Barcelona squad that won the first Women’s Champions League title in the club’s history in 2021. She also represented Spain at senior level and made two appearances at the 2019 World Cup: against China in the final group match and against the United States in the round of 16.
“Football comes to an end, but the person remains,” Falcón concluded in her farewell.
