Jesus Joaquin Gaquit Melliza (born April 20, 1992), nicknamed Jhan or Jess Melliza, is a Filipino 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 plays as an

attacking midfielder A midfielder is an outfield position in association football. Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in that case known as defensive midfielders. As central midfielders often go across boundarie ...

or a winger for

Philippines Football League The Philippines Football League, commonly known as PFL, is a Filipino professional football league sanctioned by the Philippine Football Federation (PFF). It is the Philippines' highest level of men's club football, supplanting the United Foo ...

(PFL) club Kaya–Iloilo and the Philippines national team.

Early life

A native of La Paz,

Iloilo City Iloilo City, officially the City of Iloilo ( hil, Siyudad/Dakbanwa sang Iloilo; fil, Lungsod ng Iloilo), is a 1st class Cities of the Philippines#Legal classification, highly urbanized city in the Western Visayas region of the Philippines on t ...

, Melliza was born on April 20, 1992.

Collegiate career

Melliza played for the Far Eastern University in the football tournament of the

University Athletic Association of the Philippines The University Athletic Association of the Philippines (UAAP), established in 1938, is an athletic association of eight Metro Manila universities in the Philippines. The eight-member schools are Adamson University (AdU), Ateneo de Manila Univers ...

(UAAP). He ended his college stint with FEU in 2015 by helping his varsity team win the

UAAP Season 77 UAAP Season 77 is the 2014–15 athletic year of the University Athletic Association of the Philippines (UAAP). The season host is the University of the East with Carmelita Mateo as president. Eight universities are competing in fifteen sports to ...

football title.

Club career

Green Archers United

Melliza was already suiting up for Green Archers United of the United Football League while he was still playing college football for FEU.

Stallion Laguna

He was later signed in by Stallion Laguna by May 2017 to play at the

(PFL). He was the top Filipino scorer in the PFL inaugural season.

Kaya-Iloilo

Melliza and Stallion teammate

Fitch Arboleda Fitch Johnson Daviz Barace Arboleda (born 4 January 1993) is a Filipino footballer who plays as a midfielder for Philippines Football League (PFL) club Kaya–Iloilo and the Philippines national team. International career Arboleda scored a hat ...

joined Kaya–Iloilo in March 2021.

International career

Philippines U23

He was to play for the under-23 team of the Philippines at the

2015 Southeast Asian Games The 2015 Southeast Asian Games ( ms, Sukan Asia Tenggara 2015; ; ta, 2015 தென்கிழக்கு ஆசிய விளையாட்டுப் போட்டிகள்), officially known as the 28th Southeast Asian Games, o ...

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, bor ...

but he was cut out from the final squad due to paperwork issues.

Philippines

Melliza earned his first call up for the Philippines senior national team in October 2017 for the 2019 AFC Asian Cup third round qualifier match against

Yemen Yemen (; ar, ٱلْيَمَن, al-Yaman), officially the Republic of Yemen,, ) is a country in Western Asia. It is situated on the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula, and borders Saudi Arabia to the Saudi Arabia–Yemen border, north and ...

, however, he had yet to earn an international cap for the team. In June 2022, he made his debut for the Philippines in a 1–0 win against

Mongolia Mongolia; Mongolian script: , , ; lit. "Mongol Nation" or "State of Mongolia" () is a landlocked country in East Asia, bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south. It covers an area of , with a population of just 3.3 million, ...

in the third round of the 2023 AFC Asian Cup qualifiers.

Career statistics

Club

International goals

:''Scores and results list the Philippines' goal tally first.''

Honors

Kaya–Iloilo *

: 2022–23

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Melliza, Jesus 1992 births Living people Sportspeople from Iloilo City Stallion Laguna F.C. players Filipino men's footballers Men's association football forwards Philippines Football League players