Daphne van Domselaar
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 Van Domselaar with Arsenal in 2025 | |||
| Personal information | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Full name | Daphne van Domselaar[1] | ||
| Date of birth | 6 March 2000[2] | ||
| Place of birth | Beverwijk, Netherlands | ||
| Height | 1.76 m (5 ft 9 in) | ||
| Position | Goalkeeper | ||
| Team information | |||
Current team | Arsenal | ||
| Number | 14 | ||
| Youth career | |||
| LSVV | |||
| Telstar | |||
| Senior career* | |||
| Years | Team | Apps | (Gls) |
| 2017–2023 | Twente | 78 | (0) |
| 2023–2024 | Aston Villa | 14 | (0) |
| 2024– | Arsenal | 27 | (0) |
| International career‡ | |||
| 2015 | Netherlands U15 | 3 | (0) |
| 2015–2016 | Netherlands U16 | 5 | (0) |
| 2015–2017 | Netherlands U17 | 14 | (0) |
| 2017–2019 | Netherlands U19 | 26 | (0) |
| 2019–2020 | Netherlands U23 | 3 | (0) |
| 2022– | Netherlands | 39 | (0) |
|
* Club domestic league appearances and goals as of 29 April 2026 ‡ National team caps and goals as of 18 April 2026 | |||
Daphne van Domselaar (Dutch: [ˈdɑfnə vɑn ˈdɔmsəlaːr]; born 6 March 2000) is a Dutch professional footballer who plays as a goalkeeper for Women's Super League club Arsenal and the Netherlands national team.[3] Prior to her Arsenal move, she played for Twente and Aston Villa.
Youth career
At the age of 11, Van Domselaar started playing football at LSVV in Zuid-Scharwoude.[4] In the team that she joined, the girls played without a regular keeper. However, after Van Domselaar took her turn as goalkeeper, she did not leave that position but stayed in it.[5] The LSVV goalkeeping coach immediately recognised her great talent. Moreover, he noted that she had learned a lot at the volleyball club from which she had come.[6] Van Domselaar then played for four years with the boys of LSVV and for two years with Telstar's youth academy.[7]
In her second year at Telstar, she was the one-off reserve keeper of the senior team in their away match against PSV on 4 February 2017.[8] Telstar continued as VV Alkmaar in the following season.[citation needed] Soccerway erroneously[citation needed] reports that Van Domselaar played with VV Alkmaar in the 2016–17 season.[3]
Senior career
Van Domselaar started her professional career with FC Twente in the 2017–18 season.[3] In the first two seasons she was reserve goalkeeper behind Nicky Evrard.[citation needed] She made her debut in the Eredivisie on 22 December 2017 in the match against Heerenveen, when after 20 minutes Evrard was shown a red card.[9] From the 2019–20 season, Van Domselaar was FC Twente's first-choice goalkeeper.[3]
Her first trainer at FC Twente, Tommy Stroot, called her a “pure natural talent”.[10] After the UEFA Women's Euro 2022 championship, various foreign clubs were interested in Van Domselaar, but she decided to stay with FC Twente for the 2022–23 season.[11] She did say that she hoped for a transfer to “a very nice club outside the Netherlands” in 2023.[12] At the end of 2022, she was the only Eredivisie player included in The Guardian's annual list of the 100 best female football players in the world.[13]
On 16 June 2023, Women's Super League club Aston Villa announced the signing of Van Domselaar on a three-year deal until 2026.[14][15] In March 2024, Van Domselaar underwent surgery on her hip, and would miss the remainder of the WSL season.[16]
On 31 July 2024, it was announced that Arsenal had signed Van Domselaar after triggering a substantial buyout clause in her Villa contract.[17][18] On 9 March 2025, Arsenal were knocked out of the FA Cup quarterfinals against Liverpool, after an unfortunate own goal from Van Domselaar.[19] After suffering a concussion from the FA cup match against Liverpool Van Domselaar missed Arsenal’s next two matches. She returned to the squad against Liverpool in their league match, keeping a clean sheet in a 4-0 Arsenal win.[20]
International career
Van Domselaar's first cap[definition needed] was for a friendly against Belgium U15 on 18 March 2015.[21] The UEFA Women's Under-17 Championship in May 2017 was her first major tournament. With the Dutch team she reached the semifinals.[22] Her performance in the Netherlands U17 team drew the attention of Tommy Stroot, who brought her to FC Twente in the summer of 2017.[10]
Van Domselaar made her senior team debut during the Tournoi de France on 19 February 2022 in a 3–0 win against Finland.[23] In July 2022, she was named in the Dutch squad for the European Championship held in England.[24] In the first group match against Sweden, the starting goalkeeper Sari van Veenendaal was injured, and Van Domselaar came on as a substitute in the 20th minute. She played in goal for the rest of the tournament.[25][26] Up to and including the quarterfinals, in which the Netherlands team were eliminated by France, she was the star player of the Dutch national team.[27][13] On 31 May 2023, Van Domselaar was named as part of the Netherlands provisional squad for the 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup.[28]
