Alisha Lehmann, the Swiss international for Juventus with 16 million followers on Instagram, has hit out against trolls who criticise her for wearing make-up during games.
“I’m a girl, I’m feminine, and I like nails. I’m not a full-back, I don’t have to take throw-ins. People talk too much about these things; they don’t influence my performance on the pitch in any way. They always criticize me for these things, but I don’t care,” Alisha told the Sun.
A few days ago she had talked about how the trolling amuses her.
“People always hate that I wear makeup when I play, but I don’t understand what the big deal is. Sometimes I think it’s funny when people get upset. Because now I feel like I put on more lipstick the more they complain. I’m not hurting anyone. It’s my life, and it always will be,” she said on the YouTube channel ‘Small Talk’.
However she was upset when a teammate criticised her for same reasons.
“She said I spend too much time on social media, with my sponsors and things like that, and that’s why my football has worsened. Things like that hurt me,” Alisha said.
Alisha revealed that she sent a voicemail directly to that teammate: “I thought we were friends. I would never say anything negative about another woman. And the thing is, if people have an opinion about my football—if I don’t play much or whatever—that doesn’t matter to me. That’s their opinion, that’s part of the game. But if it’s about my life, it hurts a little, especially when it comes from people I care about.”
The forward says that when she started playing as a six-year old, she was “faster than the boys” and that she “always knew I wanted to play football.” She identified the turning point in her life: “the moment everything changed was when I joined Young Boys in Switzerland when I was 11 or 12,” but she added that “I never believed I could become a real footballer. I never thought I would achieve it.”
