In a Dunfermline back garden, a young girl doing keepy-uppies in her No 5 Zidane Real Madrid kit turns, shoots and scores in the bottom corner of a green, handbuilt, wooden board, painted by her dad to mark the outlines of a goal. Her family’s video footage is a reminder that the one club Caroline Weir always wanted to play for was Real Madrid.
Fast forward two decades and that same all-white shirt – this time with Weir on the back – hangs on the walls of an Edinburgh cinema as the 29-year-old greets guests attending the premiere of a documentary the Scottish Football Association have made to honour their 108-times-capped midfielder. It feels fitting the film is being released within a fortnight of Weir scoring two decisive late goals in the women’s team’s first el clásico victory over Barcelona.
“It was a big decision to leave [Manchester] City. I had a dream when I was younger to play for Real Madrid one day so I have lived that dream,” Weir says. “It’s gone pretty well, with some difficult moments thrown in there of course, that’s football, but I do want to win things so I have fully bought in to the project of the Real Madrid idea and what they want to do with the women’s team.
“As much as we have had some really good moments, I want to be competing with the best, [win a] Champions League, the league, getting closer to Barcelona. That’s my motivation every single day, to go and win things.”
In Weir’s first season in Spain after leaving Manchester City in 2022, she played a starring role, scoring 28 goals in all competitions, from midfield, but an anterior cruciate ligament injury, sustained while playing for Scotland in September 2023, sidelined her for 12 months. She is now back to her best and much of the hard work required during her recovery was captured during the filming of the documentary.
Galáctica is an intimate insight into Weir’s life, there are more lighthearted reflections such as her driving a maroon-coloured version of the car made famous by The Inbetweeners when she was playing for Arsenal, walks his her dachshund, Skye, through to more sombre moments including a scene where Weir fights back tears when recalling her ACL surgery.
The affection her Real Madrid teammates have for her is also evident. The Colombia winger Linda Caicedo has given Weir – an avid collector of football kits – the shirt she wore when scoring against Germany at the World Cup.
Weir, who describes the film as a “huge honour”, says her technical game is evolving in Real’s system. “The role I play is slightly different,. I have quite a lot of freedom, the manager trusts me a lot in that No 10 role, and I’ve had to adapt to the league. It probably suits my abilities quite well.
“I definitely feel like I’ve grown as a person. I don’t think I would have that if I’d stayed in England. [I’m also] trying to lead by example and move into that kind of leadership role, something I’m still developing and learning, but I’ve had freedom and trust from Real Madrid from the moment I signed.
That seniority and experience is something she is now trying to bring into the Scotland camp and she craves one other thing above all else –qualifying for another major international tournament. Scotland are preparing for a double-header of Nations League meetings with Germany and she says: “I’m definitely not the loudest player in the team, but I like to think I lead by example by my behaviours.
“Inspiring girls and boys in Scotland, that is also important. Young boys seeing women playing football and the Scotland national team doing well, just to normalise that a bit, because Scotland has probably been a little bit behind other countries in that way. We do take that responsibility seriously.”
That is something Shirley Martin – the SFA’s head of girls and women’s football – hopes can be aided by having a Galáctica in the team. “It’s a real fairytale story; a local girl from Dunfermline,” she says. “To say we’ve got a Scotland player playing at Real Madrid is fantastic. She is that player who is capable of that moment of magic. It’s amazing to say to young girls ‘this could be you’.”