There truly are no words to describe how bright Alisha Lehmann’s career looks despite her young age.
Despite being only 22, she has left her mark in both her domestic career and in the Swiss Women’s National Team.
More than anything, her popularity since coming to England has been remarkable.
The interest in her relationship with international teammate Ramona Bachmann is also enormous.
As we look at her professional career so far, her journey, and her personal life, we have to start with how she started in her quest to be where she is right now.
Choosing Football
Lehmann started playing football at the age of 5. Even though she stopped for a while afterward during her primary school life, she regained her sports habits later on. After she completed her school life, she only had one dream, which was to become a professional footballer.
Lehmann’s cousins and brothers are the biggest influence on her career. They used to mock her initially because of the gender discrimination football had initially. However, they turned out to be the biggest support of the Swiss’ career later on.
Professional Career
By the time she became a teenager, Lehmann had decided to pursue a career in football. At the age of 16, she used to play for FC Konolfingen’s youth football academy. In 2016, she signed for BSC YB Frauen.
Lehmann impressed for BSC YB Frauen of the Nationalliga A before securing her move to the FA Women’s Super League. Firstly, she moved to West Ham United.
It was reported that Matt Beard, the West Ham manager at that time, was highly impressed by the Swiss’ performances in the 2018 UEFA Women’s Under-19 Championship, It was also the tournament that Switzerland hosted.
After completing her first season with the Hammers, Lehmann agreed on a contract extension with West Ham, keeping her in London for the next two seasons. She played extremely well during her time at West Ham, scoring nine goals for the club.
Lehmann’s great performances also helped West Ham United reach the FA Women’s Cup final. Her exploits with the Hammers also meant that she was one of the nominees for the WSL Young Player of the Season.
The next move in her career was to Everton on a loan before securing a long-term move to Aston Villa recently amidst interest from other clubs like Arsenal.
Now in Villa colors, she has a lot to achieve despite having a lot of accolades already in the bag.
Manager Carla Ward appreciated her talent by saying that “she can light up any WSL game”.
This kind of trust from the manager is sure to pay off in the coming seasons as Alisha Lehmann cements her place in English football.
Although she is yet to register her first goal for the club, Lehmann has looked lively so far in both matches. It looks to be a matter of time before she finds her name on the scoresheet again.
Style of Play
One of the prominent qualities of her game has to be her understanding of space.
She regularly uses her quick movement to either create space for herself to use or create openings for her teammates. Her movement off the ball is always smart and purposeful.
She mostly plays as the wide forward on the right and has the primary role of stretching opposition defenses using the width of the pitch.
The space she creates in this way is used by runners from midfield.
Her ability to play all three positions be it right, left, or centrally in attack make her especially popular with coaches.
As she develops her game, there is surely going to be an improvement in her output in terms of goals and assists.
Also, she must improve her crossing and passing accuracy if she is to continue playing on the wing for the rest of her career.
But with her honest hardworking attitude, there is surely significant improvement expected.
Personal Life
Hailing from Tagertschi, Switzerland Alisha Lehmann had quite a vibrant childhood that we regularly see on her social media.
She has a brother and a sister Shona Lehmann who she has given reference to in some of her Instagram posts.
Apart from being a great football player, Lehmann is also a very good dancer. As a result of her great dancing skills, she has gained millions of followers on her social media platforms. Her TikTok audience in particular gets to see most of her dancing shenanigans.
On Instagram, she has 370 posts and 4.5 million followers. The numbers are bound to increase as she becomes the flag bearer of Swiss football in the coming years.
In terms of sexual orientation, Alisha Lehmann is bisexual, is in a relationship with her teammate Ramona Bachmann.
Alisha Lehmann currently shares an apartment with her partner, which she has been doing for a very long time.
Previously, both partners used to play for rival clubs in England which was quite an interesting story. Bachmann played for Chelsea and Lehmann turned out for London neighbors West Ham.
Fortunately or unfortunately, Bachmann is currently a Paris Saint Germain player and has to stay in France whereas Lehmann is currently under contract at Aston Villa.
The couple opened up about their struggles of staying in different countries but both recognized that the move to PSG was best for Bachmann.
Now the pair usually meet during the international break with Switzerland being together on international duty.
While the couple has moved to different countries, their pet puppy Loui has gone to Ramona staying in Paris with her.
Her Dream Team
Recently, the Swiss striker has also talked about her dream team. In that team, she mentioned Gilly Flaherty, Kenza Dali, Ramona Bachmann, Ellen White, and Leanne Kiernan. If you follow women’s football, you would know that it has the makings of a fantastic side.
About her team selection, Lehmann explained that there are a few denominators upon which she had chosen the profile of players in her dream team. The denominators are skills of defending, technique, anticipation, scoring ability, and finishing.
You cannot argue that if your team is based on all of those denominators, you will have a very competitive football side.
International Career
In October 2017, Alisha Lehmann represented the Switzerland National Team for the first time in her career. In the 2018 Cyprus Women’s Cup, she scored her first goal for Switzerland against Finland.
Lehmann was extremely prolific in the 2018 UEFA Women’s Under-19 Championship. Maybe you can say that being the host, Switzerland had an advantage. However, a host doesn’t always win the title in the end.
Lehmann was extremely lethal in the tournament. She scored two goals in the tournament, which saw her name alongside Dajan Hashemi, Paulina Krumbigiel, Lynn Wilms, Olga Carmona, and Geraldine Reuteler.
Her performances in the Women’s Under-19 Championships drew the attention of Matt Beard. Soon after, Beard approached Lehmann and brought her to West Ham United.
Since her debut, Lehmann has been a key part of the Swiss National Team. She has made the center-forward position her own. Even though she likes to occupy both sides of the wings to get the defenders out of position, her priority is always to be lethal in the box.
Aston Villa fans can see her rotating in the attacking positions and be prolific like she has been for Switzerland.
Off The Pitch
As great a player Alisha Lehmann is starting to become, she is also making gigantic strides in her endorsements getting sponsorship deals with major brands including the likes of Adidas.
Recently, she appeared on Britain’s Youngest Football Boss, a football documentary that contains the best up-and-coming players across the world.
Britain’s Youngest Football Boss gave a lot of insight into Lehmann’s life outside the football pitch. Her partner, Bachmann, has also appeared in this documentary.
The documentary tells us about how they both handled the occasion of playing against each other. You can watch that in the fourth episode of the documentary.
Lehmann has also talked about the people whom she looked up to while she was making her decision about opting for sports. She regards Bachmann, her partner, her football idol, a football idol.
She believes that Bachmann is extremely technical, fast, and prolific in football. The best thing that she likes about Bachmann is the desire to want more every single day. Lehmann’s partner would never settle for second-best. Bachmann would always strive to be the best.
New Start at Villa
Aston Villa badly needed some inspiration this season after barely surviving relegation on the last day of the season.
So manager Carla Ward made some pretty decent signings in the summer transfer market with keeper Hannah Hampton and Alisha Lehmannjoining Villa.
It is a huge opportunity for Lehmann to cement her place in a team that needs a wizard to lead their attack and secure their status in the WSL.
