Lisa Marie De Vanna (born 14 November 1984) is an Australian professional

soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

player who plays as a

forward Forward is a relative direction, the opposite of backward. Forward may also refer to: People * Forward (surname) Sports * Forward (association football) * Forward (basketball), including: ** Point forward ** Power forward (basketball) ** Sm ...

for

Perth Glory Perth Glory Football Club is an Australian professional soccer club based in Perth, Western Australia. It competes in the country's premier men's competition, A-League Men, under licence from Australian Professional Leagues. Founded in 19 ...

. She has previously played for Adelaide Sensation, Western Waves,

Doncaster Rovers Belles Doncaster Rovers Belles Ladies Football Club, previously Doncaster Belles, is an England, English women's association football, women's football club that currently plays in the , the fourth tier of women's football in England. The club's admin ...

AIK AIK Fotboll (), more commonly known simply as AIK (), an abbreviation for Allmänna Idrottsklubben (meaning ''the public'' or ''general sports club''), is a Swedish football club competing in Allsvenskan, the top flight of Swedish football. The ...

, Perth Glory,

Washington Freedom Washington Freedom was an American professional soccer club based in the Washington, D.C., suburb of Germantown, Maryland, that participated in Women's Professional Soccer. The Freedom was founded in 2001 as a member of the defunct Women's Uni ...

Brisbane Roar Brisbane Roar Football Club is an Australian professional soccer club based in Brisbane, Queensland and has won the domestic title on three occasions, as well as holding the longest unbeaten record of 36 league matches without defeat. Brisba ...

magicJack MagicJack is an Internet-based telephone service (VoIP) provider in the United States and Canada. It offers nationwide VoIP and cellphone services. MagicJack VOIP service is a computer peripheral that, in combination with telephony service ...

Newcastle Jets Newcastle United Jets Football Club, commonly known as Newcastle Jets, is an Australian professional soccer club based in Newcastle, New South Wales. It competes in the country's premier competition, the A-League, under licence from The Australia ...

Linköping Linköping () is a city in southern Sweden, with around 105,000 inhabitants as of 2021. It is the seat of Linköping Municipality and the capital of Östergötland County. Linköping is also the episcopal see of the Diocese of Linköping (Church ...

Sky Blue FC NJ/NY Gotham FC is a professional women's soccer team based in Harrison, New Jersey. Founded in 2006 as Jersey Sky Blue, the team was known as Sky Blue FC from 2008 until 2020. A founding member of the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) in 2013 ...

Melbourne Victory Melbourne Victory Football Club is an Australian professional soccer club based in Melbourne, Victoria. Competing in the country's premier men's competition, the A-League Men, under licence from Australian Professional Leagues (APL), Victory e ...

Boston Breakers The Boston Breakers were an American professional soccer club based in the Boston neighborhood of Allston. The team competed in the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL). They replaced the original Breakers, who competed in the defunct Women's ...

Washington Spirit The Washington Spirit is an American professional soccer club based in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area that participates in the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL). It is a continuation of the D.C. United Women of the W-League and cont ...

, Melbourne City, North Shore Mariners,

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 ...

Canberra United Canberra United Football Club is an Australian professional soccer club based in the southern Canberra suburb of Wanniassa, Australian Capital Territory. Founded in 2008 by Capital Football, the club was an inaugural member of the W-League and t ...

South Melbourne South Melbourne is an inner suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 3 km south of Melbourne's Central Business District, located within the City of Port Phillip local government area. South Melbourne recorded a population of 11,548 at t ...

Sydney FC Sydney Football Club is an Australian professional soccer club based in Sydney, New South Wales. It competes in the country's premier men's competition, A-League Men, under licence from Australian Professional Leagues (APL). The club was fo ...

, and

Fiorentina ACF Fiorentina, commonly referred to as Fiorentina (), is an Italian professional football club based in Florence, Tuscany, Italy. The original team was founded by a merger in August 1926, while the actual club was refounded in August 2002 fol ...

as well as representing the Australian national team 150 times. She is noted for her pace and dribbling skills. She has been regularly considered one of the greatest female footballers in the world; football analyst and former

Socceroo The Australia men's national soccer team represents Australia in international men's soccer. Officially nicknamed the Socceroos, the team is controlled by the governing body for soccer in Australia, Football Australia, which is affiliated wi ...

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stated that she "ran on jet-fuel; burning up twice as fast, but with incredible impact."

Early life

De Vanna was born in

Perth Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia. It is the fourth most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of 2.1 million (80% of the state) living in Greater Perth in 2020. Perth is ...

, Western Australia to a Portuguese mother and an Italian father. She was born and raised in the small port city of

Fremantle Fremantle () () is a port city in Western Australia, located at the mouth of the Swan River in the metropolitan area of Perth, the state capital. Fremantle Harbour serves as the port of Perth. The Western Australian vernacular diminutive for ...

, located about 30 minutes southwest of Perth. De Vanna developed her love for the game of football at a young age and has said that she slept with her soccer ball and spent much of her time as a youth playing soccer in the street with her brother. De Vanna is a

Portuguese Portuguese may refer to: * anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal ** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods ** Portuguese language, a Romance language *** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language ** Portu ...

speaker.

Club career

Doncaster Rovers Belles L.F.C., 2006–07

In October 2006 De Vanna signed for

, departing the English

Premier League The Premier League (legal name: The Football Association Premier League Limited) is the highest level of the men's English football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the English Foo ...

club in March 2007.

AIK Fotboll Dam, 2008

De Vanna played for Swedish club

for the 2008

Damallsvenskan The Damallsvenskan, Swedish for ''ladies all-Swedish'' and also known as OBOS Damallsvenskan for sponsorship reasons, is the highest division of women's football in Sweden. It is also referred to as the women's Allsvenskan. The term Allsvenskan ...

season. De Vanna had a very successful season, being the 5th highest goalscorer with 15 goals, helping AIK to their most successful season.

Perth Glory, 2008–09

In November 2008, De Vanna was signed to

in the Australian W-League and made her first appearance for the club on 8 November 2008 against the

Washington Freedom / magicJack, 2009–11

In September 2008, De Vanna was selected by

Women's Professional Soccer Women's Professional Soccer (WPS) was the top-level professional women's soccer league in the United States. It began play on March 29, 2009. The league was composed of seven teams for its first two seasons and fielded six teams for the 2011 sea ...

. She was the 18th overall selection in the 2008 WPS International Draft. She officially signed for the Freedom in late March 2009. Through the next three years, she played for

and its successor

in the WPS as well as Perth Glory,

and

in the W-League in Australia.

Linköping FC, 2012

After the WPS suspended operations, De Vanna signed for

club

Linköpings FC Linköpings Fotboll Club is an association football club from Linköping, Sweden. The club was established in 2003 when Kenty DFF women's football club decided to merge with the premier division ice hockey club Linköpings HC under the new name L ...

. She scored five goals in her first eight games including a

hat trick A hat is a head covering which is worn for various reasons, including protection against weather conditions, ceremonial reasons such as university graduation, religious reasons, safety, or as a fashion accessory. Hats which incorporate mecha ...

against

Piteå IF Piteå Idrottsförening, commonly known as Piteå IF, is a Swedish football club located in Piteå that currently competes in Sweden's top-division women's league, Damallsvenskan. In 2018, they won the Swedish national Championship for the fi ...

on 3 June 2012. During a match against Kopparberg/Göteborg FC on 14 October 2012, she scored the game-winning goal in the 82nd minute helping her team win 3–2. Linköping finished third during the regular season with an 11–6–5 record. De Vanna finished the 2012 season having started in 18 of the 22 matches in which she played and scored seven goals.

Sky Blue FC, 2013

On 1 February 2013, it was announced that De Vanna signed with

for the inaugural season of the

National Women's Soccer League The National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) is a professional women's soccer league at the top of the United States league system. It is owned by the teams and, until 2020, was under a management contract with the United States Soccer Federatio ...

, the top division in the United States. In June 2013, De Vanna scored a

bicycle kick In association football, a bicycle kick, also known as an overhead kick, scissors kick, is an acrobatic strike where a player kicks an airborne ball rearward in midair. It is achieved by throwing the body backward up into the air and, before d ...

goal and was named the league's Player of the Week. Her goal garnered international attention and went viral on websites like YouTube and soccer-related websites. She was also voted NWSL Fans' Choice MVP for Week 8. During a game against the

Western New York Flash The Western New York Flash (WNY Flash) was an American soccer club based in Elma, New York that competed in the United Women's Soccer league. They have won league championships in four different leagues: the USL W-League in 2010, Women's Pro ...

on 21 July 2013, De Vanna was sidelined with a hamstring injury. De Vanna started in 16 of the 17 games in which she played and scored five goals. Sky Blue finished in fourth during the

regular season In an organized sports league, a typical season is the portion of one year in which regulated games of the sport are in session: for example, in Major League Baseball the season lasts approximately from the last week of March to the last week of Se ...

with a 10–6–6 record.

Melbourne Victory, 2013–14

In October 2013, it was confirmed that De Vanna had signed for Melbourne Victory for the 2013–14 W League season.

Boston Breakers, 2014

On 3 March 2014, Sky Blue FC traded De Vanna to the Boston Breakers in exchange for a 2014 international roster spot and the Breakers' first-round 2015 college draft pick, which became Sarah Killion.

Washington Spirit, 2014

On 18 June 2014, the Boston Breakers traded De Vanna to Washington Spirit in exchange for defender and Mexican international Bianca Sierra and the Spirit's fourth and fifth round 2015 college draft picks. Brisbane Roar FC vs Melbourne City FC 0292 (24007786666)

Brisbane Roar FC vs Melbourne City FC 0292 (24007786666)

Melbourne Victory, 2014–15

In September 2014 it was confirmed that De Vanna signed to play with

again.

Melbourne City, 2015–16

Having played a season with the Victory, De Vanna was lured across the city to Victory's

A-League A-League Men (known as the Isuzu UTE A-League for sponsorship reasons) is the highest-level professional men's soccer league in Australia and New Zealand. At the top of the Australian league system, it is the country's premier men's competiti ...

rivals, Melbourne City, becoming the brand new W-League side's very first signing.

Orlando Pride, 2016

On 29 August 2016, De Vanna joined

. After playing three matches in the 2016 National Women's Soccer League season, she was waived by Orlando Pride before the 2017 National Women's Soccer League season.

Canberra United, 2016–17

In December 2016, De Vanna joined

as a guest player for the remainder of the 2016–17 W-League season.

South Melbourne, 2017

On 7 April 2017, De Vanna joined

to play in the Women's National Premier League. She finished the season with 18 goals in 16 matches, including a 4-goal haul on 28 August 2017 in a 7–0 rout of

Bulleen Lions FC Bulleen Lions is an Australian semi-professional football club based in the Melbourne suburb Bulleen. Founded in 1974 by Melbourne's Italian community, the club currently competes in the National Premier Leagues Victoria 2, the second high ...

Sydney FC, 2017–2019

On 2 October 2017, De Vanna joined

Fiorentina, 2019–2020

In August 2019, De Vanna joined Italian club

Melbourne Victory, 2020–2021

In December 2020, De Vanna returned to the W-League, signing with

once more. At the end of the season, she was named in the PFA's W-League Team of the Season together with five team-mates.

Perth Glory, 2021–present

A couple of months after announcing her international retirement, De Vanna decided to return to the game, re-joining her former club

. The decision was in part related to the efforts of coach

Alex Epakis Alexander Epakis is an Australian soccer manager who manages Perth Glory in the A-League Women competition in Australia. Early life Epakis started playing football at the age of thirteen. Playing career Epakis played soccer in the Nation ...

and chairman

Tony Sage Antony William Paul Sage, known as Tony Sage (born 26 June 1960), is a Western Australian businessman who is also notable for owning A-League football club Perth Glory. Biography Born in Gloucester, England, on 26 June 1960, Sage moved with h ...

to foster a safe, supportive, and respectful environment at the club.

International career

De Vanna played four games at the 2004 Olympic Football Tournament. She scored four goals for Australia in the 2007 World Cup — one in a 1–1 draw against

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...

, two in a 4–1 victory against

Ghana Ghana (; tw, Gaana, ee, Gana), officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa. It abuts the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, sharing borders with Ivory Coast in the west, Burkina Faso in the north, and To ...

, and one against Brazil in her team's 2–3 loss in the quarterfinals. Each goal she scored at the World Cup was dedicated to her father, who died three months before the tournament began. Lisa De Vanna

On 1 October 2007 Lisa was named in the FIFA's Women's World Cup All Star Team and she was also nominated for the 2007

FIFA World Player of the Year The FIFA World Player of the Year was an association football award presented annually by the sport's governing body, FIFA, between 1991 and 2015 at the FIFA World Player Gala. Coaches and captains of international teams and media representativ ...

award. She was named Western Australian Sportswoman of the Year in 2007. After returning home after the World Cup De Vanna returned to a job at a petrol station. In May 2011 De Vanna was sent home from a training camp held to prepare the national team for the World Cup. Australian coach

Tom Sermanni Thomas Dorby Sermanni (born 1 July 1954) is a Scottish football coach and former professional player, who mostly works in women's football. He has previously managed the Australia women's national team, the United States women's national team ...

stated that the expulsion was for an unacceptable standard of behaviour. The previous September, De Vanna had been subject to a complaint after photographs involving a large inflatable penis were posted to her

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...

page. She was censured by

Football Federation Australia Football Australia is the governing body of soccer, futsal, and beach soccer within Australia, headquartered in Sydney. Although the first governing body of the sport was founded in 1911, Football Australia in its current form was only esta ...

and instructed to remove the offending pictures. De Vanna moved to Sweden for the 2012–13 season, but discussed that her desire to play for The Matildas was then stronger than ever. On 8 June 2015 De Vanna captained the Matilda's in her 100th game, scoring their only goal in a 3–1 defeat to the United States in the

2015 FIFA Women's World Cup The 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup was the seventh FIFA Women's World Cup, the quadrennial international soccer championship contested by the women's national teams of the member associations of FIFA. The tournament was hosted by Canada for the ...

. During a match against Brazil in the 2016 Olympics, a moment of De Vanna and teammate

Elise Kellond-Knight Elise Kellond-Knight (born 10 August 1990) is an Australian international football player, who plays for Melbourne Victory in the A-League Women and the Australian national team. Kellond-Knight is a left footed set piece specialist. Club ca ...

went viral when during a short break, De Vanna absentmindedly tried to drink from the wrong end of a water bottle, prompting Kellond-Knight to quickly flip it in her hand. Presently, De Vanna is the second highest goal scorer in Matildas history after Sam Kerr, with 47.

Matches and goals scored at World Cup and Olympic tournaments

Lisa De Vanna has competed in four

FIFA Women's World Cup The FIFA Women's World Cup is an international association football competition contested by the senior women's national teams of the members of Fédération Internationale de Football Association ( FIFA), the sport's international governing bo ...

tournaments: China 2007, Germany 2011, Canada 2015, and France 2019 and two

Olympics The modern Olympic Games or Olympics (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques) are the leading international sporting events featuring summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a var ...

: Athens 2004 and

Rio 2016 ) , nations = 207 (including IOA and EOR teams) , athletes = 11,238 , events = 306 in 28 sports (41 disciplines) , opening = 5 August 2016 , closing = 21 August 2016 , opened_by = Vice President Michel Temer , cauldron = Vanderlei Cordeiro de ...

; altogether played 23 matches and scored 8 goals at those six global tournaments.

Managerial

De Vanna was appointed as a Technical Assistant for the FFV National Training Centre in September 2018.

Career statistics

International goals

Honours

Club

;

* W-League Championship: 2010–11 ;

* W-League Championship: 2013–14,

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 ...

; Melbourne City * W-League Championship: 2015–16 * W-League Premiership: 2015–16 ;

* W-League Championship: 2018–19

Country

;

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

OFC U-20 Women's Championship The OFC U-19 Women's Championship (previously the OFC U-20 Women's Championship or OFC Women's Under 20 Qualifying Tournament) is a football tournament held every two years to decide the only qualification spot for the Oceania Football Confederati ...

: 2002 * AFC Women's Asian Cup:

2010 File:2010 Events Collage New.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2010 Chile earthquake was one of the strongest recorded in history; The Eruption of Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland disrupts air travel in Europe; A scene from the opening ceremony of ...

* AFC Olympic Qualifying Tournament:

2016 File:2016 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Bombed-out buildings in Ankara following the 2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt; the impeachment trial of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff; Damaged houses during the 2016 Nagorno-Karabakh ...

Individual

Julie Dolan Medal The Julie Dolan Medal is awarded annually to the player voted to be the best player in the highest women's soccer league in Australia. The medal has been presented for players in the W-League and previously the Women's National Soccer League (W ...

: 2002–03 * Women's National Soccer League Golden Boot: 2002–03 *

All-Star Team: 2007,

2015 File:2015 Events Collage new.png, From top left, clockwise: Civil service in remembrance of November 2015 Paris attacks; Germanwings Flight 9525 was purposely crashed into the French Alps; the rubble of residences in Kathmandu following the Apri ...

FIFA Puskás Award The FIFA Puskás Award is an award established on 20 October 2009 by the Fédération Internationale de Football Association ( FIFA), at the behest of then-president Sepp Blatter, to be awarded to the male or female judged to have scored the mo ...

nominee: 2013 * FFA Female Footballer of the Year: 2013

In popular culture

Television and film

Leading up to the

2011 FIFA Women's World Cup The 2011 FIFA Women's World Cup was the sixth FIFA Women's World Cup competition, the world championship for women's national association football teams. It was held from 26 June to 17 July 2011 in Germany, which won the right to host the even ...

, De Vanna was the focus of an

ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). The ...

documentary, ''Unstoppable'', directed by award-winning filmmaker, Safina Uberoi. In 2013, she was featured in an hour-long episode of ESPN's ''

Aussies Abroad Aussie is Australian slang for ''Australian'', both the adjective and the noun, and less commonly, Australia. Pronunciation In Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and Ireland, the word is pronounced , hence the alterna ...

'' entitled, ''The Matildas'', which profiled four Australian national team players (De Vanna, Samantha Kerr,

Kyah Simon Kyah Pam Simon (born 25 June 1991) is an Australian professional soccer player who plays as a striker for Tottenham Hotspur of the FA Women's Super League. In 2011, Simon became the first Indigenous Australian player to score a goal in a FI ...