Aline Villares Reis (born 15 April 1989), known as Aline, is a Brazilian professional

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby ...

who most recently played as a

goalkeeper In many team sports which involve scoring goals, the goalkeeper (sometimes termed goaltender, netminder, GK, goalie or keeper) is a designated player charged with directly preventing the opposing team from scoring by blocking or intercepting o ...

for Spanish club

UD Granadilla Tenerife Unión Deportiva Granadilla Tenerife, commonly shortened as UDG Tenerife, is a Spanish women's football club based in Granadilla de Abona, in the Canary Islands. The club plays in Liga F, holding home games at ''Estadio Francisco Suárez'', wit ...

in the 2022–23 Liga F season. Between 2016 and 2021 she made 15 appearances for the Brazil national team. She is also a former women's football coach who most recently served as the goalkeeping coach for

Orlando Pride The Orlando Pride is a professional women's soccer team based in Orlando, Florida. The team joined the National Women's Soccer League, the top level of women's soccer in the US, for the 2016 season. It became the tenth team to be added to th ...

in the American National Women's Soccer League (NWSL).

Early life

Aline was born in

Aguaí Aguaí is a Brazilian municipality located in the eastern part of the state of São Paulo. The population is 36,648 (2020 est.) in an area of . The settlement ''Cascavel'' was established in 1887 near a railway station. In 1944, when it was separat ...

, Brazil. She was inspired to play football as a goalkeeper by

Cláudio Taffarel Cláudio André Mergen Taffarel (; born 8 May 1966) is a Brazilian retired footballer who played as a goalkeeper, and is the goalkeeping coach of English Premier League club Liverpool and the Brazil national team. During an 18-year career he p ...

after watching the

1994 FIFA World Cup The 1994 FIFA World Cup was the 15th FIFA World Cup, the world championship for men's national soccer teams. It was hosted by the United States and took place from June 17 to July 17, 1994, at nine venues across the country. The United States ...

final's

penalty shoot-out The penalty shootout is a method of determining a winner in sports matches that would have otherwise been drawn or tied. The rules for penalty shootouts vary between sports and even different competitions; however, the usual form is similar to pe ...

between

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

and

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

. At the age of 18, she moved to Orlando, Florida, in the United States to play college soccer.

College career

Aline was a four-year starter for the University of Central Florida Knights women's soccer team from 2007 to 2011, and earned

NSCAA The United Soccer Coaches (formerly known as the National Soccer Coaches Association of America (NSCAA)) is an organization of American soccer coaches founded in 1941. It is the largest soccer coaches organization in the world, with more than ...

All-Central Region and All-Conference-USA honours in all four of her playing seasons. She started all but two matches for the UCF Knights and totalled 2,278 minutes during her college career. After sitting out 2007 with an injury, the NSCAA named her a second-team

All-America The All-America designation is an annual honor bestowed upon an amateur sports person from the United States who is considered to be one of the best amateurs in their sport. Individuals receiving this distinction are typically added to an All-Am ...

n in her

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freshman season of 2008, making her the first UCF Knight to be named an All-American since 1995. She finished her collegiate career ranked second in program history in saves (347), fourth in shutouts (28), and sixth in goals-against average (1.04), and was named UCF's top player in the Conference-USA era.

Club career

Before her collegiate career, Aline played for

Guarani FC Guarani Futebol Clube, colloquially called Guarani, is a Brazilian association football club in Campinas, São Paulo. Guarani is the only club from Brazil's countryside to have won the top tier of the Brazilian Championship. The team curren ...

for over six years. In 2012, following her collegiate playing career, Aline played professionally in Finland with first-division side . Her visa expired before the end of her only season with the club. She then worked as the director of soccer operations for her alma mater, UCF, while pursuing a master's degree in sport and exercise science. In late 2013, Aline joined the

UCLA Bruins women's soccer The UCLA Bruins women's soccer team is an intercollegiate varsity sports team of the University of California at Los Angeles. The team is a member of the Pac-12 Conference of the National Collegiate Athletic Association. The team won its first n ...

coaching staff as a volunteer goalkeeping coach. In December 2015, she temporarily left UCLA to play for Ferroviária in Brazil. Following the 2016 Summer Olympics, she returned to the United States and UCLA, and also played for

Santa Clarita Blue Heat Santa Clarita Blue Heat is an American women's soccer team, founded in 2008. The club was known as the Ventura County Fusion for its first two years of existence. The team plays its home games at Canyon High School. During the Fusion days, they p ...

of the pro-am

United Women's Soccer United Women's Soccer (UWS, also commonly abbreviated UWS) is a second-division pro-am women's soccer league in the United States. The league was founded in 2015 as a response to the dual problems of disorganization in the WPSL and of the fold ...

league. In 2017, Aline left UCLA to play in the Hungarian top women's league for ETO FC, but left the club along with the other international players due to not being paid their salaries. In 2018, Aline signed to play in the Spanish Primera Iberdrola with UDG Tenerife, where she played for four seasons. Aline announced her retirement from professional football on 30 January 2022, but after her suspension as a coach from the Orlando Pride in 2022, she resumed her playing career and re-signed with Tenerife in January 2023, She started 11 matches and recorded 32 saves and two clean sheets during the remainder of the 2022–23 Liga F season. One of her two shutouts on the season was against Real Madrid, in a 1–0 victory on 18 March 2023 that ended Madrid's 14-match unbeaten streak.

International career

Aline was first called to the

camp in July 2009 during her college career. She attended several training camps and friendly matches with Brazil without making an appearance. In 2016, following her season with Ferroviária, Brazil named Aline to the national team roster and signed her to a residency contract with the Brazil national team ( Seleção Permanente) to prepare for the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio. Brazil named Aline as one of two goalkeepers on the final 18-player Olympic roster and debuted for the national team during the games, playing the full match of a 0–0 draw against

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the ...

in front of 42,000 people at the Arena da Amazônia. Brazil also named Aline to the national team squad for the 2018 Copa América, which Brazil won, and for the

2019 FIFA Women's World Cup The 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup was the eighth edition of the FIFA Women's World Cup, the quadrennial international Women's association football championship contested by 24 women's national teams representing member associations of FIFA. I ...

and as an alternate for the

2020 Summer Olympics The , officially the and also known as , was an international multi-sport event held from 23 July to 8 August 2021 in Tokyo, Japan, with some preliminary events that began on 21 July. Tokyo was selected as the host city during the 1 ...

Coaching career

From 2013 to 2016, Aline spent four seasons as a volunteer goalkeeping coach for the

program under head coach

Amanda Cromwell Amanda Caryl Cromwell (born June 15, 1970) is an American professional soccer coach and former player, and former head coach of Orlando Pride in the National Women's Soccer League. Cromwell was previously the coach at the University of Centra ...

, who had been Aline's coach at UCF. Aline helped develop

Katelyn Rowland Katelyn Morgan Rowland (born March 16, 1994) is an American soccer goalkeeper who currently plays for the North Carolina Courage in the National Women's Soccer League. Rowland previously played for FC Kansas City and the Western New York Flas ...

, who set NCAA career and single-season shutout records during her UCLA career. The Bruins won a national championship and led the nation in goals against average in 2013. On 31 January 2022, professional club

of the American National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) hired Aline as its goalkeeping coach, reuniting her with Cromwell. On 10 October 2022, following the publication of a joint league and

NWSL Players Association The National Women's Soccer League Players Association (often known as NWSL Players Association or NWSLPA) is the officially recognized union of players in the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL). History The NWSLPA was formed in May 2017 und ...

investigative report into the

2021 NWSL abuse scandal Throughout the 2021 National Women's Soccer League season, allegations of abuse surfaced in multiple teams across the National Women's Soccer League in the United States. As a result, five out of the 10 teams then in the league had head coaches ...

, the NWSL placed Aline on unpaid administrative leave, and fired Cromwell and Pride assistant coach Sam Greene. The report alleged that Aline had not cooperated with the joint investigation and also pressured players to provide positive feedback to investigators. Aline was invited to be the pioneering athlete to create her own "masterclass" in Brazil for "Classe das Campeãs", featuring Olympic athletes. In a series of eight episodes, Aline shared experiences as a coach and an athlete, goalkeeping skills, and techniques to develop emotional intelligence and a strong mental game.

ESPN Brasil ESPN is the Brazilian division of ESPN Inc. Launched in March 1989 as Canal+, it was the first country-specific version of ESPN outside the United States, launched in June 1995. The channel has covered major sporting events, like the 1996, 2000, ...

aired the series "Jornada Aline Reis" on 9 March 2022.

Honors

; UCF Knights (player) * Conference-USA regular season: 2007, 2009, 2010 * UCF Athletics Hall of Fame: Inducted 2019 ; UDG Tenerife (player) * Premio Marca (top Iberoamerican player in Spain's top division): 2021 ; Brazil (player) *

Copa América Femenina The Copa América Femenina (''Copa América Feminina'' in Portuguese; previously the ''Campeonato Sudamericano de Fútbol Femenino'' (''Campeonato Sul-Americano de Futebol Feminino''), usually shortened to ''Sudamericano Femenino'' (''Sul-Americano ...

2018 File:2018 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2018 Winter Olympics opening ceremony in PyeongChang, South Korea; Protests erupt following the Assassination of Jamal Khashoggi; March for Our Lives protests take place across the Unit ...

; UCLA Bruins (goalkeeping coach) * NCAA Division I national championship: 2013 * Pac-12 conference championship: 2013, 2014

References

External links

* *
Liga F player profileUDG Tenerife player profile2016 Olympics player profileUCF player profileUCLA profile
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Aline Reis 1989 births Living people Footballers from São Paulo (state) Brazilian women's footballers Women's association football goalkeepers UCF Knights women's soccer players Campeonato Brasileiro de Futebol Feminino Série A1 players UD Granadilla Tenerife players Liga F players United Women's Soccer players Brazil women's international footballers Olympic footballers for Brazil Footballers at the 2016 Summer Olympics 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup players Footballers at the 2020 Summer Olympics Brazilian expatriate women's footballers Brazilian expatriate sportspeople in Spain Expatriate women's footballers in Spain Brazilian expatriate sportspeople in the United States Expatriate women's soccer players in the United States Brazilian expatriate sportspeople in Finland Expatriate women's footballers in Finland Brazilian expatriate sportspeople in Hungary Expatriate women's footballers in Hungary UCLA Bruins women's soccer coaches Brazilian football managers Orlando Pride non-playing staff