Maya Le Tissier (born 18 April 2002) is a professional

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby ...

who plays as a defender for Manchester United of the English

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(WSL). She has been capped internationally by

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

Club career

St. Martins A.C.

Le Tissier grew up on the channel island of Guernsey. She began playing football at the age of four for local boys' club St. Martins A.C., coached by her father, Darren. With no girls' teams on the island, Le Tissier began flying to

Hampshire Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in western South East England on the coast of the English Channel. Home to two major English cities on its south coast, Southampton and Portsmouth, Hampshire ...

to play for the county team twice a month from the age of 13, doing so for two years until the time commitment meant she was missing too much school and too many training sessions. She continued to play for St. Martins until the age of 16.

Brighton & Hove Albion

On 1 July 2018, Le Tissier joined the academy at English

club

Brighton & Hove Albion Brighton & Hove Albion Football Club (), commonly referred to simply as Brighton, is an English professional football club based in the city of Brighton and Hove. They compete in the Premier League, the top tier of the English football league ...

. She was quickly promoted to the first team, being named as an unused substitute for a WSL match against Arsenal on 25 November 2018, and made her senior debut on 5 December, starting and playing the full 90 minutes of a 5–1

League Cup In several sports, most prominently association football, a league cup or secondary cup generally signifies a cup competition for which entry is restricted only to teams in a particular league. The first national association football tournament t ...

group stage win against

Crystal Palace Crystal Palace may refer to: Places Canada * Crystal Palace Complex (Dieppe), a former amusement park now a shopping complex in Dieppe, New Brunswick * Crystal Palace Barracks, London, Ontario * Crystal Palace (Montreal), an exhibition building ...

. She made her league debut four days later starting against

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and scored her first goal for the club on 9 May 2021 in a 3–1 league win against

Bristol City Bristol City Football Club is a professional football club based in Bristol, England, which compete in the , the second tier of English football. They have played their home games at Ashton Gate since moving from St John's Lane in 1904. The ...

. She was named as Brighton Women's Young Player of the Season at Albion's end-of-season awards for both the

2020–21 The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen b ...

and 2021–22 seasons. She was also nominated for PFA Women's Young Player of the Year in June 2022.

Manchester United

On 20 July 2022, Le Tissier signed a three-year contract with Manchester United. With one year remaining on her Brighton contract, the club triggered a release clause reportedly between £50,000 and £60,000. She made her club debut on 17 September 2022, starting and scoring two goals in a 4–0 opening day WSL win against

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International career

Guernsey

Le Tissier made history when she became the first female player to play for the Guernsey under-16 boys' team, featuring in the under-16 version of the 2018 Muratti Vase against

Jersey Jersey ( , ; nrf, Jèrri, label= Jèrriais ), officially the Bailiwick of Jersey (french: Bailliage de Jersey, links=no; Jèrriais: ), is an island country and self-governing Crown Dependency near the coast of north-west France. It is the l ...

under-16s in March of that year.

England

Youth

Having been invited to an England under-15 south west regional camp, Le Tissier went on to captain the England under-15 women's national team. In September 2018, Le Tissier was named captain of the under-17s ahead of

2019 UEFA Women's Under-17 Championship qualification The 2019 UEFA Women's Under-17 Championship qualifying competition was a women's under-17 football competition that determined the seven teams joining the automatically qualified hosts Bulgaria in the 2019 UEFA Women's Under-17 Championship final ...

. England won all six qualification games without conceding and Le Tissier was named to the final squad for the

2019 UEFA Women's Under-17 Championship The 2019 UEFA Women's Under-17 Championship (also known as UEFA Women's Under-17 Euro 2019) was the 12th edition of the UEFA Women's Under-17 Championship, the annual international youth football championship organised by UEFA for the women's und ...

in Bulgaria. She started all three games as England were eliminated at the group stage on head-to-head goal difference having tied on six points with

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

and

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

. Her step up to under-19 level came on 6 March 2020 against Sweden in the La Manga tournament. She made her under-23 debut at the age of 19 in a friendly against Belgium on 25 October 2021.

Senior

In November 2022, Le Tissier received her first senior

call-up for friendlies against Japan and

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the ...

. She made her debut on 15 November, playing the full 90 minutes in a 1–1 draw with the latter opponent.

Personal life

Le Tissier's father, Darren, previously played semi-professional football for St. Martins A.C. She credits him for introducing her to the team of four-year-old boys he was coaching, of which she has said: "credit to the boys back home, if they didn't just see me as another footballer, then I might not be where I am today." Despite coming from the same small island of Guernsey and sharing a surname, Le Tissier is not related to the former England international footballer

Matthew Le Tissier Matthew Paul Le Tissier (; born 14 October 1968) is a former professional footballer. Born in Guernsey, he won eight caps for the England national team. Le Tissier spent his entire professional club career with Southampton before turning to n ...

, although the two families know each other and Darren had previously played football with Matt. In May 2022, Le Tissier signed up to footballing charity Common Goal, pledging to donate at least one percent of her salary.

Career statistics

Club

International

:''Statistics accurate as of match played 15 November 2022.''

Honours

Individual *

Women's Young Player of the Season: 2020–21, 2021–22

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Le Tissier, Maya 2002 births Women's association football defenders Guernsey footballers Guernsey women England women's under-23 international footballers Brighton & Hove Albion W.F.C. players Manchester United W.F.C. players Women's Super League players English women's footballers Living people