Mariona Caldentey greets The Athletic on a video call from her home in St Albans, north of London. It is a Friday in February and the Arsenal and Spain forward’s family are coming to visit her that weekend.

Caldentey, 28, left her hometown of Felanitx, Mallorca, when she was 18 to move to Barcelona, where she established herself and won everything possible over 10 seasons. Now, six months after moving to the UK, she is once again a newcomer in a different city.

“Having the sea nearby is perhaps one of the things I miss the most (of Barcelona and Mallorca), apart from not having people outside the football environment,” she says. “What I find hardest is not having that disconnection from football.”

Tonight, Caldentey faces a game of extra significance to her: playing her adopted country England at Wembley in a rematch of the 2023 Women’s World Cup final in Sydney.

The aftermath of that game became known for then-Spanish football federation (RFEF) president Luis Rubiales’ unconsented kiss on Spain player Jenni Hermoso. That led to a court case which concluded last week and which featured testimony from some of Hermoso’s international team-mates and current coach Montse Tome. Rubiales was found guilty of sexual assault and fined more than €10,000 ($10,500; £8,000). He intends to appeal the decision.

But now, Caldentey and the rest of the squad want to focus on football. And this game against England brings into focus the tricky process of adaptation Caldentey has faced since leaving Spain last year. She has scored 12 goals in 27 games across all competitions for Arsenal — but language proved a barrier at first.

“When I arrived, I thought my English was more or less good, but when I got here I realised it was pretty low level,” she says. “At first, I struggled above all, in more social situations, to take part in conversations. I would end the day feeling quite overwhelmed. After a few months, I have to say that I feel more comfortable now too.”

In her autobiography published in November, entitled How We Changed History and written with the Catalan journalist Laia Coll, Caldentey explains how in her first Arsenal training session a player shouted “Mariona! In the pocket!” at her, leaving her baffled.

“You think you know how to speak English and then these things happen to you,” she tells The Athletic. “For me, pocket was a bolsillo (a small bag sewn into or on clothing in Spain) and I thought, ‘What do they want from me now?’ In the field, when you have to speak quickly or understand messages, it’s difficult when you’re at such a high pulse rate.”

Caldentey celebrates scoring in the north London derby this month (Alex Burstow/Arsenal FC via Getty Images)

Caldentey is the daughter of a nurse, Maria Oliver, and Miguel Angel, nicknamed Morete. Morete passed his love of football on to her — he coached several teams in Mallorca — and his love of Barcelona. He founded an official supporters’ group in the Balearic Islands and she always wanted to play for Barca as a result.

Caldentey joined Barcelona Femeni from Mallorcan side UD Collerense in 2014 and went on to win six league titles, three Champions Leagues and six Copas de la Reina with the Catalans. But her father was not able to see that Barca side reach their peak. He died suddenly in November 2018 while Caldentey was with the team in Valencia, the day before a match.

Her father’s passion for the club was something Caldentey considered before her exit last summer.

“My father’s love for Barca was non-negotiable,” she says. “This weighed on me during all the contract renewals. But I also had the feeling that I wanted new challenges as a footballer.

“I can’t say what made me decide (to join Arsenal). It was a rollercoaster of feelings, but it was the decision I made. As a footballer, having to adapt to other contexts is a very interesting challenge, which makes you a better player and allows you to have more registers. Obviously, it’s difficult to leave Barca and it’s hard, but it’s what I felt I had to do.”

Caldentey has had to adjust quickly to the culture and the language in England, although her international team-mate Laia Codina is also part of the Arsenal squad. For the first time in five years, the team she plays for is not top of the league table: following an underwhelming start to the season, Arsenal are third in the Women’s Super League, 10 points off leaders Chelsea. Coach Jonas Eidevall left his role in October after winning just two of his final seven matches across all competitions and his assistant Renee Slegers became permanent boss in January after an interim spell in charge.

“When you’re used to winning, it’s difficult to see yourself in these positions — but it’s my first season here,” she says. “I want to take it easy, knowing that it’s a question of adaptation, getting to know the league and the team and not getting overwhelmed at first. But it’s something I suffered from at the beginning.

Caldentey won three Champions Leagues with Barca (Florencia Tan Jun – UEFA/UEFA via Getty Images)

The poor state of the Spanish women’s top-flight Liga F was another factor in her move abroad. In an interview with The Athletic in September, the Ballon d’Or-winning Barca and Spain midfielder Aitana Bonmati said it was “sad to see how other leagues are overtaking us at an incredible speed” and Caldentey thinks a potential talent drain could become a problem.

“It’s a danger,” she says. “Everyone wants to sign Spanish players because there is a lot of talent in Spain — but you have to look after that talent.

“In my case, I had played for 15 years in the Spanish league, but there are cases of young players who have hardly played in Spain and already want to go out and try other things, which makes you think that maybe you have to rethink how the Spanish league is run.

“It has to be attractive for players to stay because the talent that there is in Spain is not there anywhere else. We could have the best league and there are things that don’t go with it.”

Caldentey notices the differences compared to her experience in Spain.

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“The fans experience football differently,” she says. “In Spain, they have to take the plane for most trips; here, they can take the train, bus or car. And that means that people can always be closer to the team. Although Barca have fans who travel a lot.

“At club level, Arsenal’s facilities are also different. You have the whole building just for the women’s team… At Barca, we shared the space with La Masia (the club’s youth academy) and the youth teams. It’s something I know they wanted to change.

“Here (at Arsenal) it’s a more private space, just for us. We even have our own chef and he travels on the bus with us when we play away, he sits at the back. Here we also travel more by bus and the bus is better prepared.”

Pushing for better conditions is something Caldentey and her Spain team-mates are used to. After Spain’s Euro 2022 exit against hosts England in the round of 16, Caldentey was one of 15 players who sent an email to the RFEF saying they did not want to be selected until changes to the women’s football setup were made.

That made it even more remarkable when some of those players returned to play for the team and helped Spain lift the World Cup in Australia and New Zealand. The emotional toll of the struggles before and after the tournament led Caldentey to seek psychological help for the first time in her career.

“Football is sometimes so capricious,” says Caldentey. “At Euro 2022 in England, we had a team that could win. At that moment, things were going well and we didn’t win. Then we arrived at the World Cup with all the chaos and we ended up winning. There was one key thing, which we all knew very well, that when we were on the field it was work and we all wanted to win.

Spain are looking to focus on football after the Rubiales case (Clive Brunskill/Getty Images)

“Once the work was over in training or in matches and we had to go to the hotel it was a different matter, but we all made that click of understanding that when we were on the field, we were on the field. Making that separation of what happened outside and inside — if it made us a united team on the field, (then) leaving aside what could happen outside.”

Those struggles continued with the kiss from Rubiales on Hermoso during the medal ceremony and the saga that followed. Current Spain players Codina, Alexia Putellas, Irene Paredes and Misa Rodriguez all testified in the court case against the ex-RFEF president. Caldentey says she followed “everything” during the two-week trial (this interview took place during the trial and before the verdict was announced).

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With Spain facing England again, it is hard not to think about everything the team have been through since that evening in Sydney 18 months ago. What did Caldentey learn from the process?

“We are better, but I don’t know if this struggle of women in such a masculinised place will ever end,” Caldentey says.

“I don’t know if it’s part of our job or not, but it’s what we and previous generations have had to deal with. It’s an extra effort that we have to make for the society we live in. We have to try to leave football better for the next generations than it is now.”

(Top photo: Caldentey kisses her World Cup winners’ medal. By Daniela Porcelli/ISI Photos/Getty Images)