The “normal” pathway to the Young Matildas squad goes something like this: stand out in NPL, sign an A-League Women contract, play well in the national league and you may get called up. If you keep impressing, you might even attract the attention of an overseas club.
New Sydney FC signing Abbey Lemon took a different path to national team representation. She hadn’t even started an NPL New South Wales 1st Grade game when she moved to Europe in 2020, joining the youth academy at Spanish first division side Levante. On her return to Australia, Lemon’s NPL NSW performances were enough to earn a place in Australia’s U-20 World Cup squad – she was one of only four players in the squad who hadn’t (at that time) played for an A-League Women club.
It’s been a fascinating journey for the 20 year old winger.
Lemon played many sports growing up, but football was always her favourite. Initially, she played NPL NSW youth football for Gladesville Ravens and North West Sydney Spirit, while also being fortunate enough to spend time with a former Socceroo.
“I did the MSFC academy, that was run by Mile Sterjovski. He was a big influence on me when I was younger, and still is. He was number 21 for the Socceroos, so I was lucky enough to get number 21 for the AFF Championships and for the (U-20) World Cup.”
Between NPL seasons, Lemon spent plenty of time playing for Dural Warriors, her local futsal team. She had the privilege of working with ex-Futsalroos coach Rob Varela, and credits futsal for playing a large part in her development as a footballer.
“You get touches on the ball 100 times more than you would in a 90 minute football match. Because of the speed of the game and how many touches you get, it really helps your technical ability and decision making. I was also playing up (in age groups) a lot at Dural. I think being able to play around older players really helped me as well.
“Rob Varela has had a massive impact on my development. He was the one that had me playing up for his women’s team since I was 15 years old.”
On reflection, perhaps moving to Blacktown Spartans for the 2018 NPL season was a turning point for Lemon. During her first stint at Spartans, Lemon played U17s and Reserve Grade football, but was also training with the Spartans 1st Grade side.
“There were some really good players that were in the squad throughout that time. I just wanted to be around those players as much as I could.”
The next part of her journey is a lesson to every young, aspiring player: do some research on the opportunities that are out there. Lemon was initially interested in moving to the United States and playing college soccer – while looking into a possible American adventure, she was given the chance to train with Levante’s second team.
“It was during the NPL offseason (the summer of 2019-2020). I got a train on opportunity at Levante in the second team, so I just stayed there as many weeks as I could and I absolutely loved it.
“The next season, they pretty much started with the same teams, but one player signed for a team in the first division. Luckily, since I had been the train on before, I got told there was a spot that had opened up. I don’t think it was much of a decision to think about. It was a no brainer that I wanted to go back if I got the opportunity.”
Lemon’s move to a professional environment for the 2020-21 European season brought with it many challenges, the language barrier being one of them. There was the inevitable acclimatisation period, but once she got used to life in Spain, Lemon’s development as a player and as a person accelerated.
“We had all the facilities, coaches and staff that we needed, so that was a big difference. Getting experience in a different style of play and having to adapt to how the Spanish play was really good for me. It was really challenging, but it was the biggest year of growth.
“Luckily, the assistant coach and one of the players on the team spoke pretty good English. I did have them, but I didn’t want to rely on anyone. I didn’t want to be following this one player on the team around so she could translate everything for me. It took a while to pick up the language, but once I picked it up, then you start learning it a lot faster, you can pick up the language really quickly.
“I would do a couple of lessons a week. That was a really big challenge in the beginning, but by the end, I didn’t need any help.”
The speed of play was another big difference between Spain and Australia. Lemon was surrounded by highly talented players, some of whom would go on to earn first team contracts and even Spanish national team honours.
“The game was a lot faster. I had to keep up with the game, get quicker decision making, quicker on the ball, get physically faster and stronger as well.
“While I was there (at Levante), two of the players from my team played in the Champions League. It was cool seeing one of my teammates playing directly up against Ellie Carpenter. Now three of them are in the first team at Levante, one of them’s playing in the first team for Valencia. Two of them are now in the Under-19 Spanish national team, and two of them were in the recent Under-20 Spanish national team at the World Cup.”
Lemon also had to adjust to how Levante’s second team approached games from a tactical perspective, something that the initial language barrier made even trickier.
“It was very different to what I was used to back home. In Spain, it was changing every week. We changed formations, we changed how we were going to attack, how we were going to defend, and we’d only spend two training sessions out of the week focusing on it. The coach would just say ‘this is what we’re going to do’ and everyone immediately knew, immediately understood and could do that. In the beginning, I didn’t realise we were changing. I’m trying to do one thing that we’d learnt last week without realising that we’d completely changed how we were defending.”
As the season drew to a close, Lemon had definitely settled in at the Levante academy. However, football has this funny habit of keeping you on your toes. The Levante second team were relegated at the end of the 2020-21 campaign – Lemon decided that the best move was to return home.
“We needed to win our last game to stay in the second division, but we ended up getting relegated to the third (division). I was thinking about staying but the difference between the second division and third division in Spain is quite big. It was a friend there that told me ‘look, you’re better off going where it’s going to be challenging.’”
This period would end up being extremely challenging, but not in the way that Lemon had anticipated. Her return to Sydney was just before the 2021 lockdown in New South Wales. Lemon had to make do without a team environment as the remainder of the 2021 NPL NSW season would be cancelled.
“The day that I got out of hotel quarantine, we were in the shops and we got told that everything was going into lockdown. At that time, my mum and I were living on the Central Coast with my grandparents.
“It was good for me to be around my family, who I hadn’t seen in a really long time. It was just really difficult not being with a team and (not) training with a team, three to four nights a week.
“I had a routine. I was going down to the local park, training by myself and doing gym things at the park as well. While I enjoy doing all of that stuff, I also missed having the team aspect. Especially being on the Central Coast, I didn’t have any friends within five kilometres in that area, since all my friends were back here around Sydney (at that time in New South Wales, you couldn’t travel more than five kilometres from your home, except for certain reasons). I think that would have been the biggest challenge, just having to do everything by yourself (for) such a long time when you’re so used to being in a group of 22 players.”
Once the 2022 NPL NSW season had begun, it was clear that the stint in Spain had done wonders for Lemon’s game. Despite some uncertainty on her part, Lemon didn’t just become a regular starter for the Blacktown Spartans 1st Grade side: she also worked her way into the Young Matildas setup.
“I’d been away for so long. I’d known I definitely improved in Spain, but I wasn’t sure as to how much or what level I would be compared to back home.
“It was after the second or third round (of the 2022 NPL NSW season), I got called into a Young Matildas training camp, that one was at Blacktown. I was really excited because when I was younger, I wasn’t selected much for state teams or representative teams at all. It meant a lot, first of all, that I was starting to get recognised, and that I was even called into a camp to begin with, so I was ecstatic.”
Lemon continued to impress, and during the Young Matildas tour of New Zealand in June, she pulled off the relatively rare feat of playing for Australia’s U-20 side before playing in A-League Women.
“I was really excited because it was an overseas camp. Going into the change rooms, my jersey was next to Cushla Rue, we both looked at each other and were smiling. Walking out, standing there for the national anthem, it was just a really cool feeling.”
This was the start of a period where Lemon spent more time outside Australia than she did at home. Next up was selection for the Australian representative side that played at the AFF Championship in the Philippines, giving her the opportunity to play with more experienced players.
“There were a couple of older ones that were coming straight back from their time in Spain (with the senior Matildas squad), they had a camp there, and the games against Spain and Portugal. There were a couple of challenges in that trip, with everyone getting sick and things like that, but it was still a good time with the players that we had.”
After the AFF Championship, Lemon headed to Mexico as part of an extended Young Matildas squad for one last camp before the U-20 World Cup. As we know, Lemon made the final cut: the player who hadn’t even started an NPL 1st Grade game four months ago was going to a major tournament. Given her playing background, Australia’s group stage game against Spain carried extra meaning.
The #YoungMatildas played a training match today against @PumasMXFemenil.
Daniela Galic scored the only goal of the game, assisted by Abbey Lemon.
Thanks for a great experience! 🇲🇽🤜🏼🤛🏼🇦🇺#GoAustralia @sbssportau pic.twitter.com/STAWZOpOMH
— Football Australia (@FootballAUS) July 27, 2022
“During that training camp, you still had no idea whether you would be one of the ones going to Costa Rica. I think it was the day before we went when we found out. I was a little bit in shock.”
“It was a really good opportunity to see how we compare against some of the best teams in the world for our age group. I’m really proud of how we did there, considering we weren’t meant to be there to begin with.” (Australia were nominated by the Asian Football Confederation as one of its three representatives after DPR Korea withdrew.)
“I was lucky enough to get on the field for all three games, but I got to start against Spain. That was really cool knowing that there were people I knew watching back home and back in Spain too.”
Off the field, Lemon’s time in Spain and fluency in Spanish became incredibly handy for the whole squad.
“When we first got to Mexico, we were trying to go through customs. The guy was trying to direct us because we were a massive group and he didn’t speak English. Sally James called out to me, I walked up to the guy and immediately understood what he said, and then started telling everyone where to go, what they needed to do.
“People didn’t know that I spoke Spanish before that. From then, when we were around the hotel and things like that, if there was a staff member or somebody needed something, I would always be there to help out. They (my teammates) were really good with that though, they would look up the translation themselves and a lot of them would have a go and learn as the weeks went on.”
Playing for the Young Matildas at the U-20 World Cup will always get the attention of A-League Women clubs. After receiving interest from a few teams, Lemon opted to sign for the Sky Blues. She is looking forward to learning from the more established members of Sydney’s squad and playing football in a new environment.
“First of all, I’m really happy that I signed for one of the best A-League teams. Getting to play for my home team as well, that’s really cool. As a winger, I’m really excited to be around players like Cortnee Vine and Princess Ibini.”
“It’s a longer season and there’ll be more teams slowly added to the competition. I’m excited to go interstate and play games in other states, and I’m really excited that there will be a couple of doubleheaders at the new stadium (Allianz Stadium).”
Lemon has a lot of football ahead of her. She has an advantage over most of her peers because she already knows what it’s like to live overseas – another move abroad is definitely a possibility if she impresses the right club. Lemon also has experience working as a personal trainer, which may open up avenues for her in the future.
“I really liked the personal training jobs that I had, so I would like to start up my own business and do that, or eventually even start up my own gym, but that’s a long, long way down the track.”
Young Matildas caps and a contract with a team that has never missed the A-League Women finals mean Lemon’s prospects are bright. Lemon took an alternate route to our national league and went unnoticed to a lot of Australian fans until recently – but if she plays to her potential, she’ll be impossible to miss from now on.
