Adriana Leon

Adriana Kristina Leon (born October 2, 1992) is a Canadian professional women's soccer player who plays as a winger for English Women's Super League club Aston Villa and the Canadian national team.

She previously played college soccer for NCAA Division I programs Notre Dame Fighting Irish and Florida Gators before playing professionally for the Boston Breakers, Chicago Red Stars, Western New York Flash, Sky Blue FC, Seattle Reign and Portland Thorns in the NWSL, Swiss club FC Zürich in the Nationalliga A, and West Ham United and Manchester United of the English Women's Super League.

While at The Country Day School, Leon played soccer, volleyball and rugby, earning the rugby team's MVP honour in 2009.

She played youth soccer for Vaughan SC, Brams United and Mississauga Falcons.

In 2009, Leon was part of the Team Ontario squad that won bronze at the Canada Summer Games and finished as the tournament's top scorer with seven goals in five matches having scored in every game.

Born in Mississauga, Ontario, Leon was raised in Maple and moved with her family to King City in 2010 at the age of 16.

Her extended family holds a controlling share of Canadian furniture store Leon's.

Leon began figure skating before taking up ice hockey at the age of 10, playing seven seasons of minor hockey up to Midget AA level.

In her final season she won both the Provincial Women's Hockey League title and a gold medal at the Ontario Women's Hockey Association provincial championships with a Toronto Jr. Aeros team that also consisted of future Canada ice hockey internationals Jill Saulnier and Erin Ambrose.

Leon accepted an athletic scholarship to attend the University of Notre Dame and played for the Notre Dame Fighting Irish women's soccer team in 2010 and 2011.

As a freshman she made 23 appearances and scored four goals.

In the 2010 College Cup final she came off the bench to score the lone goal in a 1–0 victory over the Stanford Cardinal and was named to the All-Tournament Team.

As a sophomore, she was joint-second for the team lead with six goals in 20 appearances.

Leon made her senior international debut in 2012, and has represented Canada at two FIFA Women's World Cup tournaments and won Olympic gold at Tokyo 2020.

After two seasons with the Irish, Leon transferred to the University of Florida, where she played for coach Becky Burleigh's Florida Gators in 2012.

She made 22 appearances, playing in every available match after missing the first three matches while touring Japan with the Canadian national U-20 team.

Leon scored five goals including four game-winners for the Gators and helped the team to Southeastern Conference regular season and tournament titles.

Ahead of the inaugural 2013 NWSL season, Leon was named as one of 16 players subsidized by the Canadian federations as part of the initial NWSL Player Allocation.

She was allocated to the Boston Breakers.

Having been an unused substitute in the team's opening match, Leon made her professional debut on April 27, 2013 as an 84th-minute substitute for Sydney Leroux as part of a 2–1 win away at Western New York Flash.

She scored her first goal in a 5–1 loss against Sky Blue FC on June 1, 2013.

On June 29, 2013, the Boston Breakers traded Leon to the Chicago Red Stars in exchange for Carmelina Moscato.

She made 35 appearances in three seasons with Chicago, scoring one goal in each of the three seasons.

In November 2015, Western New York Flash acquired Leon along with Abby Erceg and the No. 9 overall pick in the 2016 NWSL College Draft from Chicago in exchange for Whitney Engen and a fourth-round pick in the 2017 NWSL College Draft.

She made 10 appearances during the 2016 season including three starts without scoring before departing in August 2016.

On August 30, 2016, Leon transferred to FC Zürich of the Swiss Nationalliga A for an undisclosed fee.

She made five league appearances without scoring but had some standout performances in other competitions.

She registered a goal and three assists in a 5–0 win over FC Luzern in the second round of the Swiss Cup before scoring again in the next round as Zürich beat FC Walperswil 8–1.

On October 5, 2016, Leon starred in a UEFA Champions League round of 32 victory over Austrian side SK Sturm Graz, scoring a hattrick and registering a further three assists in a 6–0 victory.

On December 1, 2016, it was announced that Leon and the club had mutually agreed to terminate her contract so that she could return to North America.

On January 30, 2017, it was announced that Leon had rejoined the Boston Breakers ahead of the 2017 season.

She was named NWSL Player of the Week twice during the season: once for week three for her performance against Seattle Reign, scoring one goal and registering two assists as part of a 3–0 victory, and again in week 21 for a one goal and one assist performance in a 3–0 win over Washington Spirit.

Leon appeared in all 24 Boston Breakers matches in 2017, scoring a total of six goals.

The Breakers ceased operations prior to the start of the 2018 season and the players were redistributed within the league via the 2018 NWSL Dispersal Draft.

Leon was selected in the second round by Sky Blue FC.

She made two substitute appearances for the team before being traded.

On June 12, 2018, Leon was traded to the Seattle Reign FC in exchange for a fourth-round pick in the 2019 NWSL College Draft.

Leon made six appearances for Seattle in 2018 including one start before the club opted not to retain her NWSL rights ahead of the 2019 season.

On January 12, 2019, Leon signed for West Ham United midway through the team's debut Women's Super League season.

The move reunited Leon with Matt Beard who had been her head coach in Boston.