Lilly Ann Reale

The groundwork was laid in Massachusetts, where she came through South Shore Select and Hingham High School before heading west. At UCLA she played 83 matches for the Bruins between 2021 and 2024, scoring three goals. The defining year was 2022: UCLA won the NCAA Division I title, beating North Carolina 3–2 in overtime in the final, and Reale was named Most Outstanding Defensive Player of the tournament. The same year she took the Honda Sports Award as the country's top female college footballer, as a sophomore. She was Pacific-12 Defender of the Year in 2022 and 2023, then Big Ten Defender of the Year in 2024 after the conference switch, and a repeat First-team All-American.

Gotham signed her on 3 January 2025. On 17 June 2026 she was traded to Boston Legacy FC, with Gotham receiving $350,000 in allocation money and $50,000 in intra-league transfer fees; Reale signed a four-year deal running to December 2029 and took the number 2 shirt.

She has been in the United States youth setup since 2017, through the U-17, U-20 and U-23 sides. With the U-20s she won the 2022 CONCACAF championship, playing five matches and scoring in the round of 16 against Suriname, and she appeared twice at that year's FIFA U-20 World Cup in Costa Rica. In 2023 she trained with the U-23s in France.