A “wee Champions League ball” is bouncing completely for Lennon Miller within the Aberdeen gamers’ lounge.
Father Lee, then a striker on the Pittodrie membership, is blown away by the freakish strategy of his two-year-old son when he “completely lotions one” on the volley.
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With the ball mid-flight, his astonishment immediately turns to horror when the spouse of then Aberdeen supervisor Jimmy Calderwood swings open the door to the lounge with a glass of wine in her hand.
Smash. Splash.
“She was soaking,” Lee recollects. “All of us simply stopped and had been pondering, ‘how’s she going to react to this?’. However she simply laughed it off.”
On the identical age, the previous Scotland striker additionally remembers his younger son oddly having the data to dry the ball together with his high earlier than taking a throw.
And by the point he was 4, Udinese’s latest signing was making an attempt corners on 11-a-side pitches, despite the fact that he “could not hit the 18-yard field”.
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Evidently, soccer was – and nonetheless is – younger Miller’s life, however his world was turned the wrong way up on the age of simply 5 following the lack of mom Donna, who died in 2012 after having most cancers.
Now 18, and having turn into a talismanic determine at Fir Park, doing mum proud is what drives Miller, who has turn into Motherwell’s file sale together with his transfer to Italy.
“Going via that at such a younger age, soccer has been my escape from such a devastating factor,” he instructed BBC Scotland in 2024.
“I felt like each time I used to be in the home it was catching up on me and each time I used to be out on the pitch I forgot about it.
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“If I used to be upset I would at all times take into consideration soccer, I would speak to my dad about soccer. It was simply my means of escaping it.”
Panenkas & ‘operating video games’ at seven
Regardless of his tender age, Miller performed 76 occasions in claret and amber.
He led out Motherwell as captain at Hampden in a Scottish League Cup semi-final defeat by Rangers final November and he shone in his first two outings for Scotland over the summer time.
It was Miller’s 91st-minute penalty towards Dundee United that booked the Fir Park facet that semi-final spot, their first in additional than six years.
The second referee John Beaton pointed to the spot, dad Lee might barely watch within the stand – not as a result of he doubted his son, however as a substitute due to his historical past of dinking penalties.
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“I’ve at all times had one in my locker and I’ve at all times loved seeing the goalie raging,” the teenage Miller joked.
“I’ve most likely stated to my dad earlier than that if I get one, I am going to dink it. However I’ve seen the goalie go early so I believed I would go away it.”
The actual fact somebody so younger would take the penalty in such a high-pressure state of affairs says all of it in regards to the laidback method through which Miller performs the sport.
And it was that composed type that made him “stand out like a sore thumb” when Stuart Ogilvie, Motherwell’s long-serving head of academy recruitment, watched Miller for the primary time with Cambusnethan Talbot boys membership.
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“He was spraying passes everywhere, operating the sport simply the best way he does now,” says Ogilvie, who additionally scouted former Scotland ahead James McFadden and ex-Celtic midfielder David Turnbull for Motherwell.
“I have been within the scouting sport for 30 years and the sensation I received after I watched Lennon was the identical as after I watched James and David.”
From Celtic previous to Properly file breaker
Miller devoted his first skilled contract at Motherwell to his late mum in 2022 [BBC]
Ogilvie thought Motherwell’s likelihood had gone when he realized Miller had been coaching with Celtic, one in all many golf equipment linked with {the teenager} earlier than his transfer to Italy.
Nonetheless, the midfielder dropped out of their academy after feeling the calls for had been “an excessive amount of stress at such a younger age”.
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Inside weeks he was a part of Motherwell’s youth set-up and rapidly grew to become “the speak of the steamie” inside the teaching workers.
All through his fast growth, the choice was made for Miller to coach and play with older age teams – one thing the midfielder feels solely enhanced his skill to “take the ball below stress”.
And away from that, father Lee would even permit his son to coach with Falkirk whereas he was their supervisor.
Curiosity from south of the border within the teen was excessive, however three years later – six days after his sixteenth birthday – Miller grew to become the youngest participant in Motherwell historical past when he got here on in a League Cup win over Inverness Caledonian Thistle.
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Whereas he watched some team-mates go away for academies of larger golf equipment, Miller understood the significance of the pathway there for him.
“That is all I needed to do, play first-team soccer, as a result of my dad instructed me that is one of the simplest ways of creating,” Miller stated.
“Shifting on and possibly not getting that, I believed that wasn’t a good suggestion. I did not wish to be enjoying academy soccer for the remainder of my profession.”
‘Why not strive the dangerous cross?’
Miller scored 4 targets and assisted eight for Motherwell final season [SNS]
That persistence and understanding, when it may need been simpler to leap at a extra profitable academy contract elsewhere, has paid off huge time.
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Regardless of a two-month harm lay-off, Miller loved a stellar breakthrough marketing campaign in 2023-24, enjoying 32 video games in a deep-lying midfield place.
His fearless skill to take the ball from the defence and hyperlink play caught the attention, however final season confirmed there are extra strings to his bow.
Deployed in a extra superior midfield position for a lot of the marketing campaign, he scored 4 targets and assisted eight, regardless of lacking six Premiership video games in early 2025 with a hairline ankle fracture.
He ranked within the league’s high 10 for likelihood creation even with that spell on the sidelines, gained essentially the most fouls of any participant within the division and gained again possession the second-most, behind Celtic captain Callum McGregor.
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“It is utterly completely different to what I used to be enjoying,” Miller stated of his extra superior position. “It is taken time to get used to and I am reaping the rewards now.”
Even with the pressures of first-team soccer, Miller’s risk-taking stays.
There are way more events when these dangers don’t repay, however “there is not any level worrying what folks assume,” he says. “Simply reset, get the ball again, and do it once more”.
However the place does that mindset come from?
Miller has at all times been impressed by Kevin de Bruyne, however he feels the lack of his mum, who at all times needed him to be a footballer, has been a “large issue”.
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In any case, misplacing a cross is meaningless compared to what he needed to endure in his formative years. So “why not strive the dangerous cross,” he provides.
‘I wish to be Scotland’s finest’
That gallus strategy has helped him flourish.
Skilled Motherwell duo Andy Halliday and Paul McGinn have stated Miller is the very best teen they’ve ever performed with.
When you think about Halliday educated with a teenage Billy Gilmour at Rangers, plus McGinn’s youthful brother is Aston Villa captain John, the feedback are “clearly an enormous honour”.
Miller proved himself alongside Gilmour and McGinn at worldwide stage just lately and now has the chance to shine on a brand new stage at membership stage in Serie A.
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One factor’s for sure, he’ll again himself.
After Miller was included in Steve Clarke’s Scotland squad for the primary time, he instructed the media: “I am clearly not going to go in and be the very best participant there, however I imagine I possibly might be in a few months.
“I feel that is how it is advisable to assume as a soccer participant – it is advisable to wish to be the very best.”
