Robyn Kimberly Moodaly (born 16 June 1994) is a South African

soccer player 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 a

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 ...

for the South Africa women's national team. She attended the

2012 File:2012 Events Collage V3.png, From left, clockwise: The passenger cruise ship Costa Concordia lies capsized after the Costa Concordia disaster; Damage to Casino Pier in Seaside Heights, New Jersey as a result of Hurricane Sandy; People gat ...

and 2016 Summer Olympics.

Early life

Robyn Moodaly was born in East London, Eastern Cape, South Africa. She began to play football, as she was growing up, describing it as "being in my genes". Moodaly played mostly with boy's teams, since there were no girls teams nearby and eventually moved to

Johannesburg Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu and xh, eGoli ), colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, or "The City of Gold", is the largest city in South Africa, classified as a megacity, and is one of the 100 largest urban areas in the world. According to Dem ...

to continue to play the game. In 2013, Moodaly joined

AIB College of Business AIB College of Business was an accredited, independent, nonprofit, baccalaureate college of business located in Des Moines, Iowa, in the United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U ...

Des Moines, Iowa Des Moines () is the capital and the most populous city in the U.S. state of Iowa. It is also the county seat of Polk County. A small part of the city extends into Warren County. It was incorporated on September 22, 1851, as Fort Des Moines, ...

. She trained with the

college soccer College soccer is played by teams composed of soccer players who are enrolled in colleges and universities. It is very prominent in United States, Japan, South Korea, Canada, and as well as in South Africa and the Philippines. The United K ...

team but was unable to play in any fixtures in 2013 due to red tape. Moodaly played two games for W-League team Colorado Rush Women in 2013.

International career

While attending the

University of Pretoria The University of Pretoria ( af, Universiteit van Pretoria, nso, Yunibesithi ya Pretoria) is a multi-campus public research university in Pretoria, the administrative and de facto capital of South Africa. The university was established in 1908 ...

's High Performance Centre, Moodaly came to the attention of

South Africa women's national football team The South Africa women's national soccer team, nicknamed ''Banyana Banyana'' (The Girls), is the national team of South Africa and is controlled by the South African Football Association. Their first official match was held on 30 May 1993 agai ...

selectors who drafted her into the national Under–17 squad. Moodaly was then part of the South African selection at the 2010 FIFA U-17 Women's World Cup. She made her debut for the senior national team aged 16 in January 2011. She only appeared for the under-21 team after she had already played for the senior side, switching back and forth between the two sides on several occasions. She attributed this to a lack of female players available. She was selected for the South African squad at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, United Kingdom. During the following years, she was hampered by injuries, and fought to be fit in time for the 2016 Summer Olympics in

Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro ( , , ; literally 'River of January'), or simply Rio, is the capital of the state of the same name, Brazil's third-most populous state, and the second-most populous city in Brazil, after São Paulo. Listed by the GaWC as a ...

, Brazil. She was selected for the warm-up match immediately prior to the tournament, against world champions the United States. She was subsequently selected for the squad.

References

External links

* Living people 1994 births Women's association football midfielders South Africa women's international soccer players South African women's soccer players South African expatriate soccer players Footballers at the 2012 Summer Olympics Footballers at the 2016 Summer Olympics Olympic soccer players of South Africa Expatriate women's soccer players in the United States Sportspeople from East London, Eastern Cape USL W-League (1995–2015) players AIB College of Business alumni University of Northwestern Ohio alumni College women's soccer players in the United States Soccer players from the Eastern Cape {{SouthAfrica-women-footy-bio-stub