Alisha Lehmann sits down for her interview with Sky Sports activities however simply earlier than the cameras roll, she notices one thing.
“Can we swap locations?” she asks this journalist. “It is simply that this [the left side of her face] is ‘my aspect’.” And so, the swap happens.
The alternate maybe sums up the notion that Lehmann is greater than a footballer. Angles and look matter, as with greater than 13m followers on Instagram and over 8m on TikTok, the Aston Villa winger is the most well-liked ladies’s soccer participant on this planet on social media.
Not even World Cup winners Megan Rapinoe and Alex Morgan can compete with Lehmann’s numbers on this enviornment, whereas the Villa ahead even has extra Instagram followers than fellow Swiss icon Roger Federer.
Such a social media presence might trigger distractions, however the equation is easy for Lehmann: soccer comes first.
“The individuals who know me at all times see the footballer,” she says when requested if Alisha the participant and Alisha the model are onerous to steadiness. “Each time I am with my family and friends, I simply talk about soccer.
“It is at all times been there, it is deep in my coronary heart as it is the factor I’ve at all times completed. The opposite stuff simply got here in time.
“Clearly I’ve loads of followers, however I by no means dreamed to have it. I simply performed and shared my life. It simply turned like this.”
Throughout half an hour with Sky Sports activities, Lehmann stresses the truth that her life has not at all times been about followings and fame. She was born within the comparatively quiet space of Tagertschi, simply outdoors Bern, and her soccer dream was fostered in that small village.
“I admire the assist a lot, it provides me energy on pitch,” she says about her social media following.
“However I actually do not give it some thought. I do not suppose that I am higher than anybody else, I come from humble beginnings with how I grew up with my household in Switzerland.
“I do not see myself as somebody with a great deal of followers on social media, clearly I am proud it – alongside my soccer – nevertheless it would not change something.”
Whereas social media has loads of positives, there are detrimental sides to it too. Lehmann, who helped to entrance a UEFA marketing campaign final yr towards on-line abuse, nonetheless sees detrimental and misogynistic feedback about ladies’s soccer.
“There are at all times individuals who do not assist ladies’s soccer as they suppose it’s a males’s sport. Plenty of occasions folks say: ‘ladies cannot play soccer, they need to be within the kitchen’.
Lehmann is a team-mate of WSL top-scorer and England ahead Rachel Daly
“However these folks have not watched a single soccer recreation. That is the issue, as a result of after they come to the video games and watch us, they go: ‘You truly can play’.
” what I feel truly? It is clearly not a pleasant factor to say as a result of we practice so onerous each single day, nevertheless it provides me extra energy.
“They’re simply bored in life and should say one thing. And it is at all times straightforward to say stuff behind a pc, I do not suppose folks would stand in entrance of our feminine footballers and say: ‘You may’t play’.”
Requested how she offers with these feedback, she says: “I do not actually care, to be trustworthy. I simply do not learn or look. I simply flip it off and deal with the great feedback.
“It is extra for my household, generally I really feel unhealthy as my mum sends me stuff. I say to her: ‘Do not learn this, I might by no means learn it’.
“It simply would not have an effect on me, as I do know these folks aren’t necessary. I am robust with what I am doing and if persons are not proud of it, then it is their selection.
“In any case, feminine footballers simply need to play and reside the dream.”
Lehmann on WSL, offered out stadia and ACL accidents
Ladies’s soccer is at an all-time excessive by way of reputation.
Offered-out Premier League stadia for Ladies’s Tremendous League video games has meant the hype from final summer time’s European Championships has been constructed on. An thrilling title race taking place to the wire has helped, whereas larger competitors throughout the league has been observed too.
Requested if this has been one of the best WSL season ever, Lehmann says: “I 100 per cent agree.
“In England, they do ladies’s soccer very well. We simply must play so many extra video games within the huge stadiums. Each single time we try this, we see the followers are coming.
“They’ve offered out the massive stadiums in England and that is why we want the assist from these golf equipment to present us the alternatives to play in these stadiums.
“For a footballer, when there are loads of followers, I play so a lot better after they’re screaming. It provides you a lot assist and energy within the recreation.
“That is what made ladies’s soccer so a lot better this season. It helped us at Aston Villa lots, we’ve got completed very well this season.”
But, regardless of the skyrocketing reputation, points stay.
Amongst them is the variety of anterior cruciate ligament accidents suffered by feminine gamers. A number of WSL stars, together with Lionesses skipper Leah Williamson and final yr’s Euros star Beth Mead, have suffered the identical long-term knee harm in just lately, shattering some World Cup goals within the course of.
Lehmann believes golf equipment ought to put extra of a deal with how the feminine menstruation cycle might improve the danger of ACL accidents.
“ACL in ladies’s soccer is clearly at all times an enormous theme, as a result of it occurs a lot extra as our our bodies are totally different [compared to male athletes],” she says.
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Advisor Orthopaedic Surgeon Nev Davies believes harm prevention programmes
“I feel it is also about our intervals, the timings we’ve got, and we have to management this as a result of they are saying when ladies get intervals it means a much bigger likelihood of getting injured.
“The golf equipment must assist us and provides us the prospect to say, as an example: ‘Perhaps you must practice a bit much less this week.'”
Lehmann additionally believes the medical requirements throughout ladies’s soccer want pressing enchancment. Her present membership Aston Villa have full-time medical employees in place for his or her WSL group, and an ACL specialist for his or her women and men’s groups, although the Swiss worldwide believes this method shouldn’t be commonplace throughout the board.
“We want the docs’ assist,” she provides. “Generally the medical [standards] for us ladies usually are not ok, as a result of when we’ve got accidents, we go to the medical aspect and so they do not actually assist us.
“I would not say it is in each membership however loads of soccer golf equipment right here in England do not have a 100 per cent [full-time] physician, for instance. And this can be a should as we’re 100 per cent skilled footballers.
“There’s a lot to enhance as a result of it is actually necessary: these accidents occur and we have to discover methods to get fewer accidents.”
Lehmann herself can be hoping to make Switzerland’s World Cup squad for the summer time match in Australia and New Zealand, the place the entire world can be watching.
But the Swiss winger is used to that.
Alisha Lehmann is a consultant of Bootbag, the first-ever soccer scouting app of its sort. Watch the sport, scout gamers throughout totally different divisions – together with the Ladies’s Tremendous League – and earn factors to win prizes.
Obtain the app here.