Douglas Luiz and Alisha Lehmann are a power couple

An article from the Guardian from 2007 collected the complaints of Roy Keane - then the manager of Sunderland - regarding some behaviors of the WAGS, an acronym still used today to indicate wives and girlfriends of famous footballers ("Wives And Girlfriends"). The Irish coach and former player, speaking to the British tabloid, responded to the complaints of the girlfriends of Sunderland footballers, who highlighted the poor quality of shopping in the North East. «If a player doesn’t want to come to Sunderland, that’s fine, but if he decides not to come because his wife wants to go shopping in London, then it’s a sad situation. It’s not a football decision, it’s a lifestyle choice. That tells me the player is weak and his wife runs his life.» Keane found himself having to persuade even players interested in signing with Sunderland, but reluctant for fear of upsetting their girlfriends, by telling them that Sunderland and the boutiques in London were closer than they thought.

There aren’t many stories about how WAGS (a term first used in 2002 by the Sunday Telegraph) have been a hindrance to some footballers’ careers. Certainly, there are more thorny and controversial gossip stories like that of Mauro Icardi and Wanda Nara, but in the end, WAGS are rarely seen as career wreckers; more often, the overall iconicity of the couple is highlighted - think simply of David and Victoria Beckham, or the very romantic love story between Cristiano Ronaldo and Georgina Rodriguez. In short, except for a few cases, the most famous power couples in football history have generally united a footballer with a personality from the entertainment world: Francesco Totti and Ilary Blasi, Iker Casillas and Sara Carbonero, Gianluigi Buffon and Ilaria D’Amico, but perhaps we’ve never seen a couple like Douglas Luiz and Alisha Lehmann. A "new" couple compared to those described by Keane in the interview 17 years ago.

Douglas Luiz and Alisha Lehmann were the first signings of the summer transfer window for Juventus, respectively for the men’s and women’s teams. The former will be a key player in Thiago Motta’s new line-up, following a nearly unsuccessful Copa América, given the missed penalty against Uruguay and the few minutes played in the competition. He arrives with many expectations; primarily due to the substantial amount spent by the Bianconeri club, and secondly to compensate for a deficient midfield that last season - between Miretti, Locatelli, McKennie, Rabiot, and Fagioli’s misfortune - performed poorly. As for Lehmann, however, it’s a different story. The Swiss forward, born in 1999, scored only 9 goals in 58 appearances between 2020 and 2024, a period spent at Aston Villa, where she met her boyfriend, Douglas Luiz, and established herself as a recognized influencer.

Alisha Lehmann is the most followed female footballer in the world on social networks; she has more than 11 million followers on TikTok and almost 17 million on Instagram - needless to say, on X, several profiles have already mocked that Lehmann has more followers than the official accounts of Inter and Milan; enough to quantify her impact outside of football and to justify what seems to be a true "couple signing." It took only €70,000 to acquire Lehmann, an affordable amount considering how much the new number 7 athlete can increase the visibility of Juventus Women’s, which seems to need a little more effort to gain more visibility. The all-Bianconeri couple is a complete novelty in the world of football - perhaps representing the evolution of the celebrity couple because it overturns the original order where footballers’ partners lived in the shadow of their partner’s fame. The worldwide fame of Alisha Lehmann, thanks also to her established presence on Twitch and her partnership with Logan Paul’s PRIME, far exceeds that of Douglas Luiz, who is invited to do well on the field and perhaps appear in some streams with his partner.

But we are sure that the Turin club will have explored the marketing and content creation opportunities to study at the table with the couple, continuing what was already started by Aston Villa. The era of new power couples and WAGS 2.0 has begun.