Sara Mérida

She initially signed for Espanyol's B team but was brought into the senior squad on a permanent basis after two months, playing her first Superliga matches when she was sixteen and saying it had been her dream to achieve this.

[17] She was included as part of the team for the Copa Catalunya in 2013; in the final in September they defeated the dominant Barcelona on penalties, with Mérida lifting the trophy with captain Sónia Matias.

[21] Mérida captained Porcinas and played "at a spectacular level",[22] with the team topping the table in the 2023 Queens League regular season before losing to PIO FC in the playoffs at the Metropolitano Stadium.

[33] Mérida played in the Catalonia football teams[34] and was part of Spain's golden youth generation that won the 2010 UEFA U-17 Euro Championship and came third in the 2010 U-17 World Cup,[35] considered their attacking midfield playmaker.

[39] In the under-17 World Cup, she scored against New Zealand from a free kick; having received a yellow card in the game,[36] she was sat out in Spain's final group stage match against Venezuela.

[9] Having struggled to accept her injuries, Mérida was supported to "get [her] life back on track"; with extensive experience of physiotherapy, she decided to become a trainer.

[6] She studied at the Instituto Nacional de Educación Física (National Institute of Physical Education), though taking longer to complete the course due to her knee damage.

She started working as a freelance personal trainer in 2016, as well as being a physiotherapist, and in 2017 said that she wanted to focus on the period of re-adaptation to team training after an injury, something for which she felt there was little support.

[4] In December 2023, she was one of several women's footballers, including Paños and Jenni Hermoso, honoured with the "Train your immunity" award by the Spanish Society for Immunology for their work promoting the benefits of physical activity in overall health.

At the end of the 2023–24 season, Mérida left the team, having overseen two successive league titles and promotions; 52 victories and 4 losses; and a +378 overall goal difference.

[52] After injury prevented her from continuing to play in the Queens League, she joined the staff of PIO FC as their assistant coach in December 2023.