Few footballers feel as much love for their club as Ane Elexpuru (Bilbao, 2 May 2003) does for Athletic Club. “When I was born, my parents gave me the Athletic lion with the shirt, and I also had a scarf,” begins the Basque side’s full-back, a Lioness from birth. The Bilbao native kicked her first balls around in her schoolyard with her friends. “The club there is Loiola Idautxu, and I started with them in my third year of primary school. I played with boys for six years,” highlights the defender, who was the only girl in her year. Although for her, “that wasn’t a problem at all. I’ve always felt like one of them, and being the only girl wasn’t an issue because a few years above me there was another girl, Andrea Sierra, who also played for Athletic, and I had her as a role model. The boys made me feel like one of them and I was very comfortable.”

Indeed, Andrea Sierra was the first mirror Ane Elexpuru looked into to realise she could be a footballer. “She joined Athletic before I did, and she was the reference I had for having gone from playing in the schoolyard to playing at Lezama,” she reveals. She also had role models in men's football. “I really liked Ander Herrera. He was a very talented player, and although I didn’t play in his position, I’ve always loved him. I also grew up watching Aduriz and De Marcos, who are also Athletic legends,” states the Basque side’s full-back, who was born just as Athletic's women's team won their first league title. “Five days before I was born, Athletic won the league. My mother had already gone into labour. I wasn’t present, but I was at San Mamés because my mother was watching the match,” the Bilbao native recalls.

From her mother's womb, and throughout her childhood, Ane began to notice the Lionesses. “Eli Ibarra, Tzibi, Nekane, Iraia Iturregi, who was also my coach, and I used to come here every Sunday to watch them play. Playing with them, or even being coached by them, seemed a distant dream, but in the end, it has come true,” she replies proudly. Her father also passed on his passion for Athletic. “He’s always been a member, since he was very young, and when a friend’s membership card became available, he would always ask me and I’d say yes. He’s the one who showed me the old San Mamés,” declares the Bilbao native, who also gets emotional talking about her grandfather. “He was also a member, and when he passed away, he transferred his membership to me.” After playing at Loiola Idautxu, she started playing with girls at Bizkerre, although with her sights set on wearing the shirt of the team of her life one day.

“I trained with Bizkerre one day a week and with Athletic B at Lezama for two days. I was already getting involved, and at the end of the season, my father told me I was joining Lezama the following year,” she responds about the Bilbao club's youth academy, which she joined permanently in 2018. There, she progressed through the ranks, while also shifting her position. “I’ve always been a player who played as a winger or a forward, and due to an injury to a teammate, I started playing as a full-back and also a wing-back. I’m very comfortable because I have the whole flank to myself,” says the defender, who never takes off her now characteristic red headband. “Loiola Indautxu’s kit was red and the headband was red, and it still suits me well now,” she replies, laughing. In 2022, she became a U19 European champion and U20 World champion with the Spanish national team.

A year she will never forget. “I have very good memories because I played a lot. It was very intense, but it was the best year of my life football-wise,” expresses the defender, who is also studying Primary Education. “It’s a matter of organising yourself and discussing the situation with your teachers. You have to be patient because you don’t have a normal life, but it’s very important to have an education, and most of us here study,” she states. Furthermore, she does so with a Liga F scholarship. “Receiving this help to balance both things is very beneficial for us and is a support for us to continue studying,” confesses the full-back, who is very clear about the advice she would give to younger footballers. “Having an education is paramount. Football is great, but there comes a point when it ends because you can’t play forever, and you need to have something more,” she adds.

Despite being only 22 years old, she already has five seasons under her belt with the Athletic Club first team in Liga F Moeve. “Little by little, we are taking steps forward. There’s still a long way to go, but you only have to look at the fact that all matches are played on natural grass, which was unthinkable a few years ago, and step by step, we will continue to take steps for this league to keep growing much more,” she says about the competition's development. An improvement that is reflected in the fact that players are gaining greater visibility. “I never imagined appearing on a trading card. I always collected the boys' ones with my brother because back then there weren't any for girls. And since they released the girls' collection, I've been collecting them, and we swap many cards in the dressing room,” replies the Bilbao native, who feels like a role model for the other academy players.

“When I collected the boys' cards, I saw them as role models, and now girls can have female ones too. We know we are role models, and we try to be approachable with them,” says a player who started playing football with boys in her schoolyard and has now played 102 official matches in the Basque team's first-team shirt. “I never imagined surpassing a hundred games. For me, it’s a privilege, and I hope there will be many more,” highlights Ane Elexpuru, who dreams of “winning a title with Athletic,” although she has already achieved playing for the team of her life. “For a Bilbao native, the dream is always to be able to play for Athletic.” This Sunday, she will once again play a match at San Mamés, the stadium where she watched Athletic's first league title from her mother's womb, and where she used to watch the men's team accompanied by her father.