Joya-Maria Maroun Azzi ( ar, جويا ماريا مارون قزي; born 23 September 2000) is a Lebanese

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 le ...

who plays as a defensive midfielder or left-back for American club

San Francisco Nighthawks San Francisco Nighthawks is an American women's soccer team, founded in 1995. The team is a member of the Women's Premier Soccer League, the second tier of women's soccer in the United States and Canada. The team plays in the North Division of th ...

and the Lebanon national team.

Early life

Born in

Ajaltoun Ajaltoun ( ar, عجلتون) is a town and municipality in the Keserwan District of the Keserwan-Jbeil Governorate in Lebanon. It is located 24 km (15 miles) north of Beirut. Ajaltoun's average elevation is 850 meters (2800') above sea level ...

, Lebanon, Azzi grew up in Okaibe, where she began playing football aged four. She initially played with local boys teams, before playing

futsal Futsal is a football-based game played on a hardcourt, hard court smaller than a football pitch, and mainly indoors. It has similarities to five-a-side football and Indoor soccer, indoor football. Futsal is played between two teams of five players ...

with her high school team aged 13.

Club career

Early career

Azzi joined her first girls football team at 14 years old, when she moved to

Zouk Mosbeh Zouk Mosbeh (Arabic: زوق مصبح) is a town and municipality in the Keserwan District of the Keserwan-Jbeil Governorate in Lebanon. It is located 12 kilometers north of Beirut. Zouk Mosbeh's average elevation is 170 meters above sea level and ...

. She then played for the under-17s and under-18s, before making her senior debut. Aged 18, she moved to EFP, playing for both their under-19 and senior teams. Azzi played two years for EFP.

Central Methodist Eagles

On 3 August 2021, Azzi joined the Central Methodist Eagles, the team of the Central Methodist University. She made her debut on 25 August, as a 60th-minute substitute in a 4–0 win against the William Woods Owls. Azzi played 11 regular season games, and helped her team finish as both league and tournament champions of the 2021

Heart of America Athletic Conference The Heart of America Athletic Conference (HAAC or The Heart) is a college athletic conference affiliated with the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA). Member institutions are located in Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, and Nebraska in ...

Tournament. She also finished semi-finalist of the NAIA Women's Soccer Championship.

Iowa Raptors FC

On 28 March 2022, Azzi moved to

Iowa Raptors FC Iowa Raptors FC are a Association football, soccer club based in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, United States. They were established in 2019 as a men's team, and formed their women's team in 2021. Their men's team compete in the Midwes ...

in the Women's Premier Soccer League.

International career

In 2018, Azzi was called up to play for the Lebanon national under-19 team, playing eight games. She got her first call up to the senior team in 2018. Azzi was called up to represent Lebanon at the

2022 WAFF Women's Championship The 2022 West Asian Football Federation Women's Championship, or simply 2022 WAFF Women's Championship, was the 7th edition of the WAFF Women's Championship, the international women's football championship of Western Asia organised by the West A ...

; she helped her side finish runners-up, scoring a goal against

Syria Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...

on 4 September.

Career statistics

International

:''Scores and results list Lebanon's goal tally first, score column indicates score after each Azzi goal''.

Honours

Zouk Mosbeh *

Lebanese Women's Football League The Lebanese Women's Football League ( ar, الدوري اللبناني لكرة القدم للسيدات) is the only league of women's football in Lebanon. It is run by the Lebanese Football Association and began in May 2008, with six teams ...

: 2017–18 *

Lebanese Women's FA Cup The Lebanon Women's Cup ( ar, كأس لبنان للسيدات, links=no), commonly known as the Lebanese Women's FA Cup, is the top cup competition for women's football clubs in Lebanon – designed as an equivalent to the Lebanese FA Cup. The ...

: 2017–18 *

Lebanese Women's Super Cup The Lebanese Women's Super Cup () is an annual match contested between the champions of the previous Lebanese Women's Football League season and the holders of the Lebanese Women's FA Cup – designed as an equivalent to the Lebanese Super Cup. ...

2017 File:2017 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The War Against ISIS at the Battle of Mosul (2016-2017); aftermath of the Manchester Arena bombing; The Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017 ("Great American Eclipse"); North Korea tests a ser ...

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 United ...

EFP * Lebanese Women's FA Cup:

2020–21 The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen b ...

Central Methodist Eagles *

league champion: 2021 * Heart of America Athletic Conference tournament champion: 2021 Lebanon U18 * WAFF U-18 Women's Championship runner-up:

Lebanon * WAFF Women's Championship third place:

2019 File:2019 collage v1.png, From top left, clockwise: Hong Kong protests turn to widespread riots and civil disobedience; House of Representatives votes to adopt articles of impeachment against Donald Trump; CRISPR gene editing first used to experim ...

References

External links

Profile
at WPSL
Profile
at the Central Methodist Eagles * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Azzi, Joya-Maria 2000 births Living people People from Keserwan District Lebanese women's footballers Women's association football midfielders Women's association football fullbacks Zouk Mosbeh SC footballers Eleven Football Pro players Central Methodist Eagles women's soccer players Iowa Raptors FC (women) players San Francisco Nighthawks players Lebanese Women's Football League players Women's Premier Soccer League players Lebanon women's youth international footballers Lebanon women's international footballers Lebanese expatriate women's footballers Lebanese expatriate sportspeople in the United States Expatriate women's soccer players in the United States 21st-century Lebanese women