February 11, 2023, 05:02 PM
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Singapore's national football player Danelle Tan has made history by being the first Singaporean woman to ply her trade in a European league.
The 18-year-old made her debut for the London Bees on Feb. 5, 2023, against Plymouth Argyle at The Hive Stadium in North London.
She came on as a substitute at half-time and was involved in the play that led to her side's only goal.
Gif adapted via Danelle Tan's Instagram.
London Bees, however, eventually suffered a 2-1 defeat.
FT | Late heartbreak for The Bees.
— London Bees 🐝 (@LondonBees) February 5, 2023
🐝1-2🟢#LondonBees🐝
London Bees plays in the FA Women's National League South, the third-tier of women's football in England.
Danelle Tan made history recently for being the FIRST female Singaporean to play in a European football league 💯 Here's some pictures of Danelle in action!
— FAS (@FASingapore) February 10, 2023
📸Courtesy of Danelle Tan pic.twitter.com/kd7nQfghdf
Will play for London Bees till May 2023
According to The Straits Times, Tan will play for London Bees until May 2023 when the season ends.
She moved to London in January 2022 to study at Mill Hill School and will sit for her A-Levels this year.
ST reported that Tan had contacted London Bees for trials, after deciding that she wanted to challenge herself by playing football in England.
She impressed the club during her trials and was subsequently registered.
Her other achievements in the sport
This is not the first time Tan has made history for Singapore.
In November 2022, she was accepted into a National Collegiate Athletic Association Division 1 football programme, one of the top football programmes in the U.S, becoming in the process, the first Singaporean to do so.
As part of the programme, Tan will join the College of William and Mary in 2024 under a part-athletics scholarship and will play for their Division 1 team.
According to the Football Association of Singapore (FAS), only the top 1.1 per cent of high school football players get accepted into the Division 1 programme, with only 0.5 per cent receiving scholarship aid.
Has impressed since she was a kid
Tan's overseas ventures come as no surprise to Singaporeans who are familiar with our local women's football scene.
She made the Singapore Under-16 national team in 2017 at the age of 12 and scored her first goal for the country against Tajikistan in 2018.
In 2019, she made her senior international debut for Singapore in the AFF Women's Championship match against Timor Leste. She was just 14 years old.
She scored Singapore's only goal in the game and made history — once again — by being the youngest ever football player (male and female) to score for Singapore at a senior international level.
In a UEFA-FAS Under-15 Girls' tournament in March 2019, Tan scored four goals against Guam and one against Cambodia, making her the tournament's joint-top scorer.
More recently in the 2022 FAS Tri-Nations series, Tan scored two goals and bagged one assist in Singapore's 6-2 win against Seychelles.
She was also part of the team that won Singapore's first women's SEA Games match since 1985.
Top images via Danelle Tan on Instagram.
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