Manon Melis
Dutch football manager and former footballer / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Gabriëlla Maria "Manon" Melis (Dutch pronunciation: [ɣaːbriˈjɛlaː maːˈrijaː maːˈnɔn ˈmeːlɪs]; born 31 August 1986) is a Dutch manager of women's football development at Feyenoord and a former professional footballer who played as a forward. She spent most of her professional career playing in the Swedish league Damallsvenskan, which she won three times with her club LdB FC Malmö, in 2010, 2011, and 2013. Melis also won the Swedish Supercup with Malmö in 2011, and was briefly with the Swedish teams Linköping and Göteborg. She was the Damallsvenskan top scorer three times, in 2008, 2010, and 2011. In 2016, she moved to the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) in the US, playing for Seattle Reign for one season, before retiring from professional football.
Personal information | |||
---|---|---|---|
Full name | Gabriëlla Maria Melis[1] | ||
Date of birth | (1986-08-31) 31 August 1986 (age 37) | ||
Place of birth | Rotterdam, Netherlands | ||
Height | 1.64 m (5 ft 5 in)[2] | ||
Position(s) | Forward | ||
Youth career | |||
0000–2004 | RVVH | ||
Senior career* | |||
Years | Team | Apps | (Gls) |
2004–2006 | RVVH | ||
2006–2007 | Be Quick '28 | ||
2007–2011 | LdB FC Malmö | 103 | (84) |
2011–2012 | Sky Blue FC | 0 | (0) |
2012 | Linköpings FC | 21 | (16) |
2013 | LdB FC Malmö | 21 | (11) |
2014–2015 | Kopparbergs/Göteborg FC | 42 | (25) |
2016 | Seattle Reign FC | 16 | (7) |
International career | |||
2001–2002 | Netherlands U17 | 9 | (3) |
2003–2004 | Netherlands U19 | 21 | (13) |
2004–2016 | Netherlands | 136 | (59) |
*Club domestic league appearances and goals |
At age 17, Melis made her debut for the Netherlands national team in 2004. Her scoring helped the Dutch qualify for their first major tournament, the UEFA Women's Euro 2009, where they reached the semi-finals. In the tournament, she scored a crucial goal in the final group game against Denmark to send her team into the knockout stage. At Euro 2013 in Sweden and the 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup in Canada, she played all seven combined matches for her country but did not score. When she retired from playing international football in 2016, she had earned 136 caps and scored 59 goals. She was the all-time top goal scorer for the Netherlands national team from 2010 to 2019.
Melis has been the manager of women's football development at Feyenoord since 2017 with the aim to create a first team that competes in the Dutch Eredivisie and is supported by youth and reserve teams. She achieved this goal when Feyenoord Women fielded a team in the Eredivisie for the first time in the 2021–22 season. Her father is former Feyenoord player Harry Melis.