Ana Tejada

Ana Tejada Jiménez (born 2 June 2002) is a Spanish professional footballer who plays as a centre back or defensive midfielder for the Utah Royals of the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) and the Spain national team.

Club career

Longroño Raised in the village of Lumbreras in La Rioja, Tejada started her career at Logroño, where she was already playing for the first team when they achieved promotion to the Primera División in 2018, making her the youngest active player in the top league, aged barely 16.

Real Sociedad A solid campaign with Logroño led to her being signed by Real Sociedad in 2019. With her first campaign in San Sebastián interrupted by injury and then the COVID-19 pandemic in Spain, she became a regular for the txuri-urdin in the 2020–21 season, starting 24 matches. She made her NWSL debut on 25 May, starting in a 1–0 loss to the Kansas City Current. Tejada scored her first goal with the Royals on 31 August as the team beat the Houston Dash, 3–1. Three games later, she was awarded the NWSL Goal of the Week award following a long-distance strike against Racing Louisville FC. She made 15 total appearances with Utah in 2024 as the team finished 11th in the league standings.

International career Tejada was a member of the Spain under-17 squad that qualified for the UEFA Women's Under-17 Championship in May 2018 (Lithuania) and the FIFA U-17 Women's World Cup played six months later (Uruguay), She was still young enough to play in the 2019 Under-17 Euros (Bulgaria) and was named in the 'Team of the Tournament', as she had been in the previous year. She later won the 2022 FIFA U-20 Women's World Cup.

Tejada made her senior debut on 11 November 2022, as a 76th-minute substitute in a 7–0 friendly home win over Argentina.

Honours Spain U17 FIFA U-17 Women's World Cup: 2018 UEFA Women's Under-17 Championship: 2018

Spain U20 FIFA U-20 Women's World Cup: 2022

Individual UEFA Women's Under-17 Championship Team of the Tournament: 2018, 2019