Soccer (Football)
Deyna Castellanos: The trailblazer changing Venezuelan soccer
Before becoming a global soccer star, Deyna Castellanos was a young girl playing alongside boys in Venezuela, chasing a dream that would transform her life and inspire a generation.
Deyna Castellanos was one of those kids who had to be dragged inside to clean off after a day spent outside. She loved playing in her neighborhood of Maracay, Venezuela, with the band of kids around her age, drawn in by her older brother, Alvaro. It was there she was first introduced to soccer.
“That's how I started to play,” Castellanos explains. “I'd go with him to fútbol (soccer) trainings, and I'd just be running around and kicking a soccer ball.”
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Early live in Venezuela
Deyna Castellanos fell in love with soccer while growing up in Maracay
© Courtesy of Deyna Castellanos
Deyna Castellanos learned soccer by playing with the boys
© Courtesy of Deyna Castellanos
It was there a coach first noticed her and told her parents she should join the team, an idea initially met with resistance from her father, Richard, who believed then that soccer was a men's sport. But her mom, Irene, didn’t let that keep her daughter from the game. Instead, taking Castellanos to trainings when her dad was traveling for work.
“She would have to deal with all the energy that I had during the day,” Castellanos remembers with a laugh. “For her it was normal, because she grew up with five other siblings, and four of them were boys, so for her it was normal to be playing outside with her siblings and doing all these things. She never saw the typical stereotype, like ‘no, she's a girl, like she has to go play with dolls,’ no, not at all. She was like ‘no, let her be and if she's happy doing it, why not?’
Her dad’s hesitance at his daughter playing fútbol ended the first day he saw her play.
“He saw me scoring a few goals,” Castellanos remembers, “and then he was like, yeah, she's passionate about it, she likes it, but the rock is my mom.”
While her dad’s mind was changed the moment he saw his daughter play, for others in her Venezuelan community the acceptance took longer.
“I never saw the difference between me and the boys,” Castellanos reiterates. “If anything, they made me better, they made me tougher. Even their parents made me strong-minded because they would say comments like, ‘oh hit her, she’s just another boy,’ and ‘she’s a tomboy,’ and stuff I didn’t understand. My mom would say, ‘you score a goal and shut their mouths,’ so that’s what I did.”
My mom would say, ‘you score a goal and shut their mouths,’ so that’s what I did.
Castellanos could never have imagined how those initial years of playing with the boys and proving her place on the field would impact her for decades to come.
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How Deyna Castellanos changed women's soccer in Venezuela
Deyna Castellanos scored six goals at the 2014 FIFA U-17 Women's World Cup
© Koury Angelo
With no female soccer role models in Venezuela, Castellanos knew two things from an early age. First, she was going to have to leave in order to chase her own dreams. Second, she wanted to become the role model she never had.
One of the first moments these realities set in was in 2014, as a member of the Venezuela National Under-17 Team when she led her team to a fourth-place finish at the 2014 FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup. She became the first Venezuelan to win a Golden Boot thanks to her six goals throughout the tournament.
“You saw immediate change in Venezuela,” Castellanos said. “It was crazy to come back home and just seeing that it was something that was possible, it wasn’t forbidden anymore.”
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From Venezuela to Florida State: Building a college soccer legacy
Florida State helped launch Deyna Castellanos' global soccer career
© Koury Angelo
That moment of returning home victorious, and respected, as a female soccer player, was one Castellanos wanted to experience again. She chose Florida State University for college, knowing it would not only enhance her play, but give her that elite level of female competition that was so rare as a child.
“It was like seeing something completely new, because, I didn't know that was something [elite female teams and competition] that was real. In my country that wasn't real. So it was just an unbelievable experience.”
At FSU, Castellanos won the 2018 NCAA National Championship and became a two-time NCAA All-American. Her exceptional talent earned her a historic nomination for The Best FIFA Women’s Player award – the youngest nominee ever.
In her time under head coach Mark Krikorian, she not only excelled on the field, but felt he prepared her off the field for how to truly be a professional soccer player.
“He always treated us like that.”
It was a lesson she’d need to put into practice immediately after graduating.
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How Deyna Castellanos built her European soccer career
Following FSU, Castellanos decided to forego entering the draft for the National Women’s Soccer League and pursued a career in Europe, signing with Atletico Madrid.
“I wanted to go to a place where I could grow as a player and be in control of my future,” Castellanos explained. “With the [NWSL] Draft, I didn’t have that.”
In 2021 she scored the opening goal in the 2021 Supercopa de España Femenina to give the club its first- ever Supercopa. From Spain to England, those years in Europe cultivated the pro her college coach had planted the seeds of at FSU.
“It got me ready,” Castellanos said of those years with the Seminoles. “I had a lot of success there and then I moved to England and that’s when I think my game changed completely. I became more mature as a player, as a person. I learned new skills, different positions, and more responsibility in a sense.”
After four years in Europe, it was time for Castellanos to finally make her NWSL debut.
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Deyna Castellanos makes her mark in the NWSL
In 2024, Castellanos became a member of the inaugural Bay Area FC team, becoming the first Venezuelean- born player to compete in the NWSL. She appeared as a midfielder with 21 appearances, 12 starts, 2 goals, and 1 assist.
“I definitely like to think that I bring experience and creativity [to the league],” Castellanos shares. “I think I bring Latin American flavor and bring something that is special.”
In January 2025, the Portland Thorns became the benefactor of that creativity when she signed a two-year contract with the team. In her first season in PDX she recorded two goals across her 13 starts and 21 appearances.
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Leading Venezuela's women's national team
Deyna Castellanos hopes to lead Venezuela to its first World Cup
© Koury Angelo
Even as she shines as a superstar around the world, Castellanos’ home country is never far from her mind or her attention. Having represented the Venezuelan National Team since 2013, Castellanos has her sights set on the 2027 Women’s World Cup and ensuring Venezuela makes their first appearance in the Senior Women’s World Cup.
Castellanos continues to play a pivotal role in Venezuela's rise on the international stage. During the CONMEBOL Women's Nations League campaign that secured Venezuela a place in the FIFA Women's World Cup Play-In Tournament, she started all eight matches, played every available minute, scored three goals and added five assists. She finished as the tournament's highest-rated player for creating dangerous scoring opportunities, underscoring her influence as both a playmaker and goalscorer.
The campaign further demonstrated why Castellanos remains the driving force behind Venezuela's ambitions to reach its first FIFA Women's World Cup.
“It’s the right time, with the right people and right mentality,” Castellanos says of her team’s chances at qualifying for the 2027 Women’s World Cup. “We have all grown so much as a team and the coaching staff is fantastic; we click very well and I think we all speak the same language, the fútbol language.”
With 32 nations competing in the event, Castellanos team has a chance in February of 2026 to do something that has not only never been before, but change female fútbol in Venezuela even more than their superstar ever has.
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The Deyna Castellanos Foundation
Deyna Castellanos is creating opportunities for future generations
© Koury Angelo
It was always about how can I open the door. It’s my best goal for sure.
‘Deyna la Reina,’ flows off the tongue in her native language of Spanish, and so naturally does it also make sense that ‘Queen Deyna,’ who had no female soccer players to look up to as a girl growing up in Venezuela, wants to ensure that never happens again.
Castellanos created the Deyna Castellanos Foundation, a project that focuses on empowering young athletes and building paths towards a brighter future, with a special emphasis placed on the next generation of Venezuelan women who want to follow in her footsteps.
“It was always about how can I open the door,” Castellanos explained. “It’s my best goal for sure.”
The program provides young athletes with full scholarships to study in the United States, donates equipment annually, and organizes local tournaments. Already the program has funded more than 50 scholarships with recipients spanning at least five different countries around the world.
“At some point you don’t really know how many lives you’re impacting, “Castellanos reflects. “I’m impacting those girls’ livese but then they’re impacting somebody else and the circle goes and goes. It’s very beautiful to me.”
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What’s next for Deyna Castellanos?
Few athletes have had a greater impact on women’s soccer in Venezuela than Castellanos and yet, talking with her gives the distinct impression she has even more ahead of her. She has been a trail blazer every step of her way, but it’s the way she clears the path behind her that goes so far beyond the game.
“Maybe the rocks that I hit on the way, I would have to step over them instead of falling,” Castellanos explains. “I have never been afraid to be the first in something, I take a lot of pride and honor in doing that and being the person that falls and then gets up again and makes sure nobody else makes that mistake again.”