Samantha Camille Dacanay Nierras is a Filipino international footballer.

Early life

Nierras was born on July 16, 1989, in Fremont,

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

, in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. She was raised in California and later moved to the Philippines in 1999.

Youth career

She was first involved in football at the age of 8, when she joined kiddie soccer tournaments sponsored by

Milpitas Milpitas (Spanish for "little milpas") is a city in Santa Clara County, California, in Silicon Valley. As of the 2020 census, the city population was 80,273. The city's origins lie in Rancho Milpitas, granted to Californio ranchero José Marí ...

' City Police Department. Samantha Nierras played for the La Salle Lady Booters varsity team as a football player. She played at midfield position. Nierras was named MVP of the UAAP Season 72 when she led her team to the championships as team captain.

International career

Nierras first played at the international level at age 14 for the under-19 team. Months later she made her international debut for the senior team. She was team captain at the 2014 AFC Women's Asian Cup qualifiers and

2013 Southeast Asian Games The 2013 Southeast Asian Games ( my, ၂၀၁၃ ခုနှစ် အရှေ့တောင် အာရှ အားကစား ပြိုင်ပွဲ), officially known as the 27th Southeast Asian Games, or the 27th SEA Games, and comm ...

Career statistics

International goals

:''Scores and results list the Philippines' goal tally first.''

Personal life

Samantha Nierras' father,

Ernie Nierras Ernest Thomas Nierras is the current head coach of Stallion–Laguna. He was also team manager of the Philippines national football team. Coaching career Men's football Nierras is the current head coach of Stallion–Laguna which plays at th ...

, is a football coach and the former head coach of the Philippine women's national team. Her involvement in the national team prompted her father's to take the job as one of the two team manager of the team under head coach Marlon Maro. Samantha credits her family for introducing the sport of football.

References

1989 births Living people De La Salle University alumni Filipino women's footballers Philippines women's international footballers Women's association football midfielders {{Philippines-women-footy-bio-stub