Shadeene Evans

Shay Evans
Born	(2001-09-07) September 7, 2001 Borroloola, Northern Territory, Australia
Occupation	Soccer player
Known for	Australian soccer forward for Central Coast Mariners

Shadeene "Shay" Evans (born 7 September 2001) is an Australian soccer forward who currently represents Central Coast Mariners.

Early life

Evans was born in Borroloola, Northern Territory, and began playing soccer at the age of nine through the JMF program, which was established by John Kundereri Moriarty, the first Indigenous Australian selected for the national football team. Her first coach was Daniel Campos, a former goalkeeper and director of the program. In 2014, Moriarty awarded Evans a school sports scholarship to enhance her development. Before this, she was among a select group from Borroloola who traveled to Brazil during the 2014 FIFA World Cup.

In August 2015, Evans moved approximately 3,000 kilometers away to New South Wales to attend Westfields Sports High School. While there, she trained under Alen Stajcic, then head coach of the Australia women's national soccer team, and became part of the NSW Institute of Sport. Although she missed her remote community, she embraced the superior training environment to progress her soccer ambitions.

Club career

Evans joined Sydney FC in November 2018 for the 2018-19 W-League campaign. She made her first appearance on 10 January 2019 in a 3–0 victory over the Western Sydney Wanderers.

Her inaugural senior goal for Sydney FC came on 17 November 2019 during the opening match of the 2019–20 W-League season, contributing to a 3–0 win against Melbourne Victory.

Following that W-League season, Evans competed in five matches with Sydney Olympic in the NPL before transferring to Northern Tigers for the subsequent season.

Ahead of the 2021–22 A-League Women season, she returned to top-tier Australian football by signing with Adelaide United. In October 2022, Evans re-signed with Sydney FC, and then in September 2023, she committed to Central Coast Mariners.

International career

In March 2018, Evans was selected for the Young Matildas squad alongside ten other athletes from the NSW Institute of Sport for a training camp preparing for a fixture against the Thailand U-20 team.