Amid a stellar debut season at Adelaide United, Lucía León tells aleagues.com.au how she broke down family barriers in pursuit of her footballing dream, and how a surprise chance to become an international captain changed her life.
Lucía León still remembers it vividly: peering out the bus window at the gloomy London sky, crawling through peak-hour traffic on her daily journey to the training facilities of Tottenham Hotspur.
She would often leave home in the middle of the afternoon, only to reach her destination shortly before training began at seven.
The year was 2013, and León was just 16 years old, taking the first steps on her journey to becoming a professional footballer, having recently arrived in the UK from Spain.
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At the time, León couldn’t speak a word of English; afraid of the hustle and bustle of the London Underground, she opted for the slower route to training, seeking the comfort and safety of buses over the more convenient yet intimidating depths of the underground railway.
For the next six years, León’s life followed the same pattern:
“Study, play, eat and sleep,” León tells aleagues.com.au. “I loved it. That’s how it all started.”
Today, Ninja A-League fans are well aware of the player León has become; a star of Adelaide United, the 27-year-old Dominican Republic international has burst onto the Australian scene amid a magnificent first season at the Reds.
But it’s only once you learn of the roadblocks that once stood in her path to becoming a professional that you can appreciate the calibre of player León has become: the energetic, solid defender with an instinctual goal threat flying up and down the wing for Adelaide in 2025.
León’s career might’ve never taken off in the first place, if she had succumbed to pressure to conform to the traditional expectations set for women in Dominican culture.
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“My mum moved to Spain from the Dominican Republic when she was in her teens, then my dad came over a few years later,” León explained.
“They already had a daughter, but then they had me and my twin brother. We’re the same age, but I call him my little brother. I’ve looked after him my whole life.
“He and my older sister, and my cousin, those three are the highlight of my childhood football journey. We played together all the time.
“My sister used to have to battle my parents a lot, because my parents didn’t really agree with us playing football. They believed it was a men’s sport. They were very traditional, because of the traditional nature of Dominican culture.
“My sister really struggled to pursue football; she used to play futsal and was very ‘techy’ and loved it so much. I used to go and watch her and think: ‘Wow, my sister is so good, she’s the best’. But she’d have to bring us to matches in order to play. Sometimes my brother would go wandering, and she’d have to come out of her game and go and look for him.
“That’s what inspired me. It was so difficult for her. My parents didn’t help her at all, so when I grew up I thought: ‘I’m going to be strong, I’m going to be like my sister’. I knew I’d have to fight my parents a little bit.
“I said: ‘If I don’t play football, I’m not going to study!’ And they were like: ‘No, you need to study! You can play soccer, you just need to make sure you get home not too late’.
“When I had just turned 16, my dad got a new job and we moved to London. That’s when I started playing for Tottenham.”
Today, Tottenham’s women’s team competes in the illustrious FA Women’s Super League, but in 2013, the club was a world away from its current professional status.
That’s when León arrived at Spurs, without a word of English in her vocabulary, and without an idea of what was in store for her across the next eight years in London.
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“We started at an amateur level, basically,” León recalls.
“I remember taking the bus to training with Juan Carlos Amorós, our coach, and he’d have his bag of footballs on his back in the bus.
“He was coaching kids, coaching us, and trying to survive, basically. Because the women’s program didn’t have any money, so he’d have to get his money elsewhere, coaching or doing other things.
“The main thing for me at that time was to learn English, because I couldn’t speak a word when we arrived in England.
“Suddenly, I was travelling in this big city by myself, catching the tube, which is a mess and so scary when you’re young. Everything was so big.
“If I had training at 7pm, I’d catch the bus at 3 or 4 because I had to go through London. I was scared of the tube, and I only knew how to move in buses. I had to travel three hours there and maybe an hour and a bit back, because the traffic by the time I finished training was done.
“It was a lot of travel. Right now I couldn’t do it, but back then, I was only 16. I was like: ‘This is my dream. This is what I want to do for the rest of my life’.
“We used to go to school from 9am – 2pm, then we’d go to train, and then after training, I’d have a gap of two or three hours where I’d be hanging out somewhere. I didn’t have many friends, so sometimes I’d just go to a park and wait there. Because I lived really far, so I didn’t have time to go back home before I’d train with the first team.
“So two or three times a week, I left my house at 7am and got back at 11pm, because I had to train twice. But through it all, the energy was just unbelievable; I was just training and playing football every single day.
“My life in England was great. I loved it, I’m grateful to my parents for bringing us there.”
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León spent eight years at Tottenham, including the first season of the club’s new era in the WSL, before returning to Madrid CFF on loan in 2021 – the club that launched her career in her early teens.
Just last week, León read an aleagues.com.au article about fellow Ninja A-League Finalist Brooke Nunn, and how the Central Coast Mariners star was first discovered by a scout who was walking through a London park while Nunn played a casual game of kickabout with her cousin’s friends.
The story resonated with León, and unlocked a similar memory of her own road to discovery at Madrid CFF at the age of 14.
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“I was reading Brooke Nunn’s story last week, and it was so similar to mine,” she said.
“Because I was also playing in a park, and the directors of a local club kept walking through that park to go to their office. One of them saw me and said: ‘You play very well, do you want to join our team?’ But it was an all-boys team. So I played on the streets until I was 12 or 13, and I played with a boys’ team until I was 14. Then Madrid CFF scouted me from the boys club.
“That’s how my football career started, before I moved to London. It was literally so similar to Brooke’s story: just playing on the street with boys, and someone sees you, and your life changes.”
Back then, León dreamed of playing for the Spain national team. Years later, she represented the nation at Under-23 level. At that time, progression to the senior squad felt like a foregone conclusion.
But that opportunity never came; what did, however, eventuate was an unexpected opportunity with the Dominican Republic. The opportunity presented to León on her return to Madrid CFF from Tottenham on loan in 2021.
“When I was growing up, I always wanted to play for the Spain national team,” she said.
“But only because the Dominican Republic national team wasn’t really a thing back then, it was very small and I didn’t really know anything about it.
“Only when I started to grow up, maybe in my late teens or early twenties, that’s when I started to hear a little bit more from the D.R. national team. I even went to one of their camps, but I wasn’t sure then about the project, and I still had Spain in the loop.
“Then I went to the U23s with Spain and I loved it. I thought it was my time to get into the national team, but the U23s didn’t really happen for me again.
“When I got older, I was meant to go with the seniors, but it’s difficult in Spain when you haven’t done a lot of the youth-level camps, it’s difficult for you to go straight into the senior national team.
“I was at Madrid CFF on loan from Tottenham for a few months, and there I met the technical director who was friends with the new coach who was going to take over the D.R. national team.
“He contacted me and said: ‘Hey, there’s a good project for the national team, do you want to hear him out?’ And I said: ‘You know what? Let’s do it’.
“It changed my life. It was the best decision I ever made. To this day, if I was offered the opportunity to go back to Spain I wouldn’t because it gave me so much more than what I thought, not just in sport but life.”
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When León debuted for the Dominican Republic in 2021, the nation was at its lowest-ever world ranking of 113. Now they’re 101st in the world and climbing; the Dominican Republic’s highest-ever ranking was World No.81 in 2009.
León likens her decision to commit to the Dominican Republic national team to the process of joining Adelaide United ahead of the 2024-25 Ninja A-League season: an unexpected opportunity taken based on instinct, from which she is now reaping significant rewards.
“Coming here was one of those decisions, like choosing the D.R. national team,” León said.
“It was an amazing decision. I didn’t know what to do, it was August, and normally by August in Europe you already know what you’re doing. For me, I wasn’t in pre-season with a team, and I was struggling mentally and physically to keep up. Then, the Adelaide offer came through. It wasn’t an offer where you think: ‘I have to go’ – it was more of a gut feeling.
“Even though financially it might not have been a contract that would change my life, but it changed my life for the better in other aspects. I’ve had a really good season thanks to all the trust of the staff and my teammates, I’ve managed to stay injury-free and really enjoy a lot of minutes in the league.
“I’m very, very thankful I came here. I think this league is getting more and more competitive each year.”
For the first time in her life, León is playing her club football on the other side of the world from her parents.
After all the friction caused in her childhood by the prioritisation of her football over all else, León cherishes the relationship she now shares with her mum and dad.
“It’s weird because they don’t really message me,” León said. “They’re supportive, but they don’t watch my games. But they’ll peek on Instagram to see what I’ve been doing, and occasionally they’ll drop me a message or call me and say they saw me score.
“It sounds a bit weird, but I don’t need their support to do my thing, because I didn’t really have it when I was a kid. I love to make them proud, I love that they’re good with me doing what I’m doing and that they’re super proud and tell everybody I’m a football player.
“Just this week, I had a chat with my mum for a little while, and she was asking what my plans are for next year, because I had said to her that I was only coming (to Adelaide) for one year.
“She said: ‘Are you coming back? What’s going on?’ And I said: ‘You know what, I don’t know what I’m going to do yet. I’ve had a really good season this year, so I’m still waiting to see, but there might be a chance I’ll stay for another season here in Australia’.
“And you know what? She was very supportive. She said: ‘I’m very proud of you. Keep going. I’ve been seeing your goals, and this is the best season I’ve ever seen you play’.”
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León has made 24 appearances for Adelaide this season. She’s scored five goals and assisted three more in a relentlessly energetic wingback role. Her addition to the Adelaide squad has been a key factor in the club’s remarkable transformation from wooden spooners last season, to third-place finishers in 2024-25.
Last week, León and the Reds beat Western United 1-0 in the club’s first-ever Finals Series win, to set up a two-legged Semi-Final against Melbourne Victory, with a place in the Grand Final on the line for the winner.
This Saturday, Adelaide hosts leg one at Coopers Stadium in a game León describes as one of the biggest in club history.
“It’s been a big turnaround that none of us expected,” León said.
“I didn’t know what to think coming here, I just knew this team finished at the bottom of the league last year.
“Together, we’ve been solid and I think that’s super important. Even though we’ve had injuries with Fi (Fiona Worts), Chels (Chelsie Dawber) and Erin Healy, we’ve always managed to find a way. We know now we can suffer and still get results.
“We’ve just got to look back at the performances we’ve had against Victory and try and hurt them like we’ve done before in other games.
“It’s one of the biggest games in the club’s history. We need all the support we can get; we want to make sure to let them know this is our home, we’re here for the win, and we’re going to need noise every time we attack, defend, or win a battle.
“Make that noise to let Victory know this is our home. We can only do that if our 12th player is there: the fans. It was a great atmosphere on the weekend, and I am 100% confident we can make it even better this weekend.”
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