Kayla Shea Rendell (born 29 June 2001) is an English 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 le ...

who plays 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

Women's Championship The Women's Championship (formerly The FA Women's Championship) is the second-highest division of women's football in England. The division was established in 2014 as the FA Women's Super League 2 (WSL 2). WSL 2 replaced the previous level 2 d ...

club

Southampton Southampton () is a port city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. It is located approximately south-west of London and west of Portsmouth. The city forms part of the South Hampshire built-up area, which also covers Po ...

, and the England under-23 team. A product of the Southampton academy, she has represented England since under-16 youth level.

Early life

Rendell began playing football at the age of 6 with Merely, in

Poole Poole () is a large coastal town and seaport in Dorset, on the south coast of England. The town is east of Dorchester and adjoins Bournemouth to the east. Since 1 April 2019, the local authority is Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Counc ...

, joined the Dorset Centre of Excellence aged 8, and later played for Merley Cobham Girls. Prior to becoming a full-time footballer, Rendell worked at

Screwfix Screwfix is a retailer of trade tools, accessories and hardware products based in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1979 as the Woodscrew Supply Company, the company was acquired in July 1999 by Kingfisher plc, which also owns B&Q, and is listed o ...

while playing

non-league football Non-League football describes football leagues played outside the top leagues of a country. Usually, it describes leagues which are not fully professional. The term is primarily used for football in England, where it is specifically used to de ...

for Southampton part-time.

Club career

Rendell joined Southampton aged 15, playing in the Region Talent Club under-16s team. On 27 February 2022, in the

2021–22 FA Cup The 2021–22 FA Cup was the 141st season and marks the 150th anniversary of the first FA Cup, Football Association Challenge Cup, the oldest Association football, football tournament in the world, started in the 1871–72 FA Cup, 1871–72 season. ...

, she scored a dramatic equalising goal from a corner against

Ipswich Town Ipswich Town Football Club is a professional association football club based in Ipswich, Suffolk, England. They play in League One, the third tier of the English football league system. The club was founded in 1878 but did not turn profession ...

in extra time, which was later awarded as Goal of the Season. In the 2022–23 season, Rendell was awarded

Player of the Month for October 2022, having kept three clean sheets in the month in 1–0 victories. In May 2023, she was nominated for Women's Championship Save of the Season for her fingertip save against

Sunderland Sunderland () is a port city in Tyne and Wear, England. It is the City of Sunderland's administrative centre and in the Historic counties of England, historic county of County of Durham, Durham. The city is from Newcastle-upon-Tyne and is on t ...

. In June 2023, Rendell was awarded Southampton Women's Player of the Season by fans, featuring in all but one of the Saints games, keeping nine clean sheets, and making a total of 89 saves. On 23 June 2023, she extended her contract with Southampton until 2025.

International career

Rendell has represented England at every youth level from under-16 to under-23. On 16 March 2018, Rendell was named as part of the England under-17 squad for 2018 U-17 Championship qualification. She made her debut on 28 March 2018 against

Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...

, keeping a clean sheet in the 4–0 win. In May 2018, in the

final tournament Final, Finals or The Final may refer to: *Final (competition), the last or championship round of a sporting competition, match, game, or other contest which decides a winner for an event ** Another term for playoffs, describing a sequence of cont ...

, Rendell kept clean sheets in victories over

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 re ...

and

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

, with England beaten 2–1 by Finland in the World Cup play-off. On 30 September 2022, Rendell was called up to the England under-23 squad for fixtures against Norway and Sweden, where she would be an unused substitute, in favour of

Emily Ramsey Emily Jo Ramsey (born 16 November 2000) is an English professional footballer who plays as a goalkeeper for Everton of the Women's Super League, on loan from Manchester United. Club career Youth career Ramsey was born in Salford and played yout ...

. On 20 February 2023, Rendell made her debut for the England U23 team, as the starting goalkeeper in a 4–1 victory over Belgium. On 30 October 2023, with the under-23s, she made a series of saves to keep a clean sheet against Portugal in a 2–0 win. In April 2024, Rendell received her first call-up to the senior

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

team for their Euro 2025 qualifiers. In May, she was named to the standby list for Euro qualifiers, but later withdrew from the squad due to an ankle injury.

Honours

Individual * Southampton Women's Goal of the Season: 2021–22 *

Player of the Month: October 2022 *

Women's Player of the Season:

2022–23 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 ...

References

External links

Stats
at FAWNL
Profile
at Southampton F.C. website
Kayla Rendell
at Soccerway {{DEFAULTSORT:Rendell, Kayla 2001 births Living people English women's footballers Southampton F.C. Women players FA Women's National League players Women's Championship (England) players Women's association football goalkeepers England women's youth international footballers