Football: Alisha Lehmann: ‘I’m a one hundred percent footballer’

At the end of last January, the Aston Villa striker wanted to resume the thread of her international history with her country. She had wanted to take a break a few months earlier, depriving herself of a Euro, “at home” for her or almost, because the competition had taken place in England. The one who also wore the colors of Everton and West Ham, where she landed in 2018, already from Young Boys, has lived in Great Britain since she was 19 years old.

To avoid speculation and rumors, the Swiss Football Association presented the returnee to the press on Tuesday, barely started the training camp of the Nati for women in Marbella, Spain, where two friendly matches against the Poland are organized this Friday (4:30 p.m.) and next Tuesday. The Swiss was able to put points on some Is and the player seemed far from the clichés she conveys, she is the winger who sells calendars of herself on her website and has just overtaken a certain Roger Federer at the number subscribers on Instagram with 11.8 million followers.

The ice was quickly broken, in a somewhat younger group compared to what it had known last year. “It is a pleasure to see all these familiar faces again and to have fun together again, smiled the Swiss, who also accumulates more than six and a half million followers on TikTok. I am very happy, happy even to be here. My teammates made me feel very welcome. Directly, we talked a lot together and the nervousness that could still exist quickly disappeared.

“In life, things happen that you don’t necessarily expect, detailed the player. There are events that I don’t want and that I can’t talk about in front of the whole world. There are also things about me that I just don’t want to show or things that everyone doesn’t need to know. Now, I want first of all to come back to the reality on the ground. I am proud to be here and to be able to play for my country again. We will see what role I will play in this group next.

Coach Inka Grings gladly welcomed this “new recruit”. It is besides the “Villans” which had taken the first step in January, to reintegrate its national team. Suddenly, the former coach of FC Zurich took her to Spain and it was up to the player to make herself indispensable. “For me, Alisha is a player like the others among the 26 elements of my group and, like all her teammates, she has the possibility of winning,” confirmed the former German international.

Obviously, when you talk to a young woman who earns more in a few Instagram posts than in a season on green lawns, it fascinates. And the issue of networks quickly came to the fore. “But I really don’t need a lot of time for social media. I want to be very clear, again. I am one hundred percent footballer. I train every day and I play on weekends. I have never heard from me, whether in my clubs or in the national team, that social networks were a problem. A bit of jealousy, on the other hand, perhaps.