Merel van Dongen

Merel van Dongen
van Dongen, in training with the national team in 2018
Personnel
Surname	Merel Didi van Dongen
birthday	February 11, 1993
place of birth	Amsterdam ,  Netherlands
size	170 cm
position	Midfield / defense
Juniors
Years	station
1998-2007	SC Buitenveldert
2007-2010	Pancratius
2010-2011	Ter Leede
Women
Years	station	Games (goals) 1
2011–2012	ADO The Hague	10 0(2)
2012-2015	Alabama Crimson Tide
2015-2018	Ajax Amsterdam	71 0(9)
2018–	Real Betis Féminas	43 0(4)
National team
Years	selection	Games (goals) 2
2008-2009	Netherlands U-17	11 (3)
2010–2012	Netherlands U-19	33 (7)
2015–	Netherlands	40 (1)
1 Only league games are given. As of February 2, 2020 2 As of March 7, 2020

Merel Didi van Dongen (born February 11, 1993 in Amsterdam ) is a Dutch soccer player who is used both in midfield and in defense . She has played for the women's national team since 2015 and for Real Betis Féminas in the Primera División since 2018 .

Club career

Merel van Dongen played in her youth at the Amsterdam club SC Buitenveldert, then with male youths at RKSV Pancratius and from 2010 to 2011 for Ter Leede in Sassenheim. On September 9, 2011, she made her debut for ADO Den Haag in the Eredivisie for women's football and was champion and winner of the Dutch Women's Cup that season. After the season she moved to the United States to the University of Alabama and played on the college team of the Alabama Crimson Tide . In January 2015 she returned to her homeland and played for Ajax Amsterdam until 2018 , with whom she won the double twice. For the 2018/19 season, she moved south to Seville to the Spanish club Real Betis Féminas .

National teams

She made her debut in the orange jersey on September 7, 2008 at the age of 15 in the U-17 team. In October she took part in the 1st qualifying round in Turkey for the U-17 European Championship. The second round was reached with three wins and 14: 0 goals. In this, the team failed in March 2009 to France. Van Dongen then took the team again in October and helped the team to qualify for the second qualifying round of the 2010 European Under-17 Football Championship with three wins against Kazakhstan, Moldova and Ukraine . She did not take part in this herself. Instead, she played for the U-19 team from 2010. On March 1, 2010, when she was 17, she made her first appearance in the U-19 national team. In qualifying for the U-19 European Women's Football Championship in 2010 , she played all games in the mini-tournament in the second qualifying round. She was also at the finals in Macedonia and made it to the semi-finals against England. Since neither team could score a goal, the penalty shoot-out had to decide on the final: Van Dongen was able to convert her penalty as the penultimate Dutchwoman, but since her team-mate Siri Worm was unsuccessful while all the English scored, the Oranjes were eliminated. The next time she tried, she was back on board. In September 2010, at a tournament in Norway, the hosts reached the second round and also survived this at a tournament in Denmark. She also took part in the finals in Italy . For their team, however, the end came in the preliminary round. In September 2011 she again took part in the qualification for the U-19 European Women's Football Championship in 2012 and reached the second qualifying round with her team. After that, she played a few more games for the U-19 team, but then did not take part in the second qualifying round.

When Mandy van den Berg sustained a knee injury in preparation for the 2013 European Championship in a friendly against Australia and was therefore unable to play for the European Championship, Van Dongen was re-nominated for the European Championship without having previously played in the senior national team. At the EM it was not used. The Dutch women failed in the preliminary round as the bottom of the group and were the only team unable to score a goal.

She only made her senior national team debut on February 7, 2015 in a 7-0 win over Thailand , which was her first ever game in Europe. She came on as a substitute for Mandy van den Berg in the second half . At the Cyprus Cup 2015 she came to two missions. On April 15, 2015 she was initially appointed to the provisional squad for the 2015 World Cup and then to the final squad on May 10. She then played in two other test matches and scored her first international goal on May 20 in a 7-0 win against Estonia , making it 3-0. At the World Cup she was used in three games and was eliminated with her team in the round of 16 after a 2-1 defeat against defending champions Japan .

For the EM 2017 in her home this conversation has been nominated for the preliminary squad from the final squad but deleted. In the subsequent qualification for the 2019 World Cup , it was only used in the last playoff game against Switzerland and thus only played a small part in the successful qualification. But she was nominated for the World Cup on April 10th. At the World Cup, which ended in second place for her team, she was used in the three group matches as well as the eighth, quarter and semi-finals, where she was in the starting eleven four times.

successes

• Dutch champion 2012 (with Ado), 2016/2017, 2017/2018 (with Ajax)
• Dutch Cup Winner 2012 (with Ado), 2016/2017, 2017/2018 (with Ajax)
• Algarve Cup victory 2018 (together with Sweden)
• Second of the 2019 World Cup

Web links

• Profile in the UEFA database (ndl.)
• Profile on the website of the Dutch women's national team
• Statistics of operations in the U-19 on the oranje website
• Statistics of operations in the U-17 on the oranje website
• Profile on the University of Alabama website
• Profile on the Real Betis website
• Game statistics at soccerway.com
• Merel van Dongen in the database of weltfussball.de

Individual evidence

1. ↑ FWWC 2015 Squad List fifadata.com
2. ↑ European Women U-19 Championship 2010-11
3. ↑ uefa.com: "Van Dongen replaces Van den Berg"
4. ↑ Nederland - Thailand 7-0
5. ↑ onsoranje.nl: "Voorlopige WK-selectie Oranjevrouwen"
6. ↑ onsoranje.nl: "Reijners kiest WK-selectie Oranje"
7. ↑ Nederland - Estonia 7-0
8. ↑ onsoranje.nl: Wiegman maakt 23-koppige WK-selectie bekend
9. ↑ The final could not be played due to the weather conditions, whereupon both teams were declared tournament winners.