Lauri Ala-Myllymäki

Ala-Myllymäki is a product of Ilves's own academy, and it was in Tampere that he built the profile which eventually took him abroad. Across his first spell at the club, from 2013 to 2020, he made 198 league appearances and scored 40 goals. 2016 brought the club's Player of the Year award, and by June 2019 he was named Veikkausliiga's Player of the Month, a season in which he was also picked for the league's team of the year.

That form earned him a move to Italy in November 2020, joining Venezia. The transfer never translated into first-team football, however: Ala-Myllymäki did not make a single official appearance for the senior side. A loan to Triestina in Serie C in January 2022 gave him some game time, ten matches, before he returned to Ilves in January 2023.

Back in Tampere, he settled into a longer run of regular football. By the summer of 2026 his second spell had brought 62 league appearances and 10 goals, and the team success followed him too: Ilves won the Finnish Cup in 2023, a repeat of the trophy he had already lifted with the club in 2019, and finished as league runners-up in 2024.

His overall career figures stand at 329 matches and 61 goals. Internationally, Ala-Myllymäki came through Finland's youth setup at every level from under-16 to under-21, but a senior cap has so far eluded him.