Lennon Miller is the latest Scotland export to Italy as he swaps the Scottish Premiership for Serie A.
The teenager has signed a five-year deal with Udinese after securing a club record transfer fee for Motherwell of around £4.7m, including potential add-ons.
He made 76 appearances for the Steelmen, captained them last season and made his Scotland debut in June – he has already achieved more than most footballers by 18.
Where the journey started
Lennon’s dad Lee played for a number of clubs, including Aberdeen
Miller’s obsession started from an early age – largely thanks to his father, Lee, who was also a professional footballer.
He played for the likes of Aberdeen, Hearts, and Middlesbrough, and says his son’s love of the game was clear to see straight away.
“He must have only been months old when he started kicking a ball about. Every time he had a football he would get excited about it and it just continued from there,” he told Sky Sports.
“He was six days old when I signed with Aberdeen, which makes you feel old, but his mum religiously took him to every game that I was involved in and he just focused on the game.
“He studied the game from a very early age and obviously took to it and loved it. I remember when he was four, and I was down at Middlesbrough, and I made him a corner flag because he wanted to hit corners. We dug it in the grass and he used to ping corners in, he just loved it from day one.
“Lennon lost his mum when he was five. They were really close, done so much together and it was hard, but now we have such a strong connection and he’s got such a strong support network around him.
Lennon Miller lost his mum at an early age
“Football’s always been the thing that takes him away from all the tragedy and all the kind of thoughts. Once he’s on that training pitch or on that football pitch for games, he blocks out everything that’s happened in his life because it’s a massive tragedy at such a young age.”
‘Miller was different to every other player’
James McFadden (L) made 118 appearances for Motherwell
Motherwell legend James McFadden knows a thing or two about catching the eye in North Lanarkshire before moving on to bigger things, having switched to Everton in 2003 for £1.25million.
The Sky Sports pundit lined up with Lee for the national team and has a son who played alongside Lennon. That all amounts to McFadden having kept a particularly close eye on the Udinese midfielder’s development.
“My son and Lennon are the same age, so they played against each other at, five, six years old at the Funfours. Any parent out there will know what the Funfours is like, it’s normally absolute carnage and Lennon stood out like a sore thumb,” he said.
Lennon Miller impressed at Motherwell from an early age after coming through the academy
“He was taller than a lot of the boys, but most are doing cartwheels, picking their nose, looking the other way. Some kids are not even that interested, which is fine, but Lennon had unbelievable talent, it seemed effortless.
“The same boy that the Motherwell fans got to see, it is the same stuff you were seeing back then – dropping a shoulder and pinging the ball.
“He was different to every single player on that pitch.”
McFadden’s not the only other Motherwell academy graduate to bring in a strong transfer fee – David Turnbull swapped claret and amber for the green and white of Celtic in a then club record fee of £3.25m in 2020.
‘He stuck out like a sore thumb’
Lennon Miller began his career in the youth system at Motherwell from the age of seven
Stuart Ogilvie spent decades scouting for Motherwell and has seen them all up close. He also knew Miller was special the very first time he laid eyes on him.
“When he was playing with Cambusnethan Talbot, it was down at a primary school in Uddingston and he was playing against Newlands Boys Club,” Oglivie added.
“The first thing that I noticed was everything was all hurry scurry about him, but he was so composed on the ball.
“His head was up, he was looking for the pass, you know, he stuck out like a sore thumb.
“It was seven a side, he was in the same midfield with Bailey Rice, two of the best players in Scotland at that age group and the two of them just kicked on together, so much so after 18 months or so we started to play them up an age group to challenge them even more and the two boys handled it terrifically.”
Lennon Miller (L) played alongside the likes of Bailey Rice, now at Rangers, at Motherwell’s academy
Although the hype was there from an early age, Scottish football has been littered with promising youngsters who didn’t quite make the breakthrough to first-team level.
Stevie Hammell made Lennon Motherwell’s youngest ever player when he subbed him on in a 2022 League Cup tie against Inverness Caledonian Thistle aged 16 years and 6 days.
Managerial change followed two months later, meaning it was under Stuart Kettlewell where the midfielder really started to flourish in the starting XI.
Lennon Miller became the youngest player to captain Motherwell last season
“We knew very quickly that Lennon was going to play,” Kettlewell said.
“You’re never sure how consistent that will be or will it be for the full season, but through the pre-season of his initial year of being a regular, we just felt he was head and shoulders above the rest with such talent and maturity.
Lennon Miller won PFA Scotland Young Player of the Year last season
“There’s many different ways of having an impact on a team and sometimes people look at it and you shout, you bawl, you scream, I think very much Lennon’s talent was his influence on the pitch.”
Miller’s move to Udinese comes after months of speculation over his future and talk of big-money moves.
His dad insists the speculation has never been an issue, with his son remaining focused on the job in hand – trying to impress for club and country.
Lennon Miller made his Scotland debut last season
“All he wants to do is play football, yes he’s got ambition to play at the highest level but he knows how hard it is to get there and there’s a journey for him to get there.
“Hopefully, we can help him within that and he knows what direction he wants to go in.”
