Matildas defender Ellie Carpenter announces engagement
A star member of Australia’s beloved Matildas has continued her year of triumph in 2024, proposing to her partner and on-field teammate.
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Matildas defender Ellie Carpenter has kicked off 2024 with a bling, with the Aussie sports star announcing her engagement to her teammate and partner Danielle van de Donk.
Twenty three year-old Carpenter, who plays for French Division One club Olympique Lyonnais alongside van de Donk, posted a photo of the pair cuddled up on a picturesque beach in the Maldives, with her partner sporting an oval-cut diamond on her ring finger.
“My person for life,” she wrote on Instagram on Monday night.
Carpenter, who has played for the French side since 2020, met Dutch player van de Donk when she moved to the club in 2021 after leaving English Premier League side Arsenal.
The pair didn’t reveal their romance until a year later, posting a set of loved-up snaps from St Tropez after their team won the Champions League.
Now considered one of the ‘power couples’ of the sport, the pair, who were both selected to represent their birth nations of Australia and the Netherlands, managed to avoid playing against each other during the Matildas’ record-breaking performance at the FIFA Women’s World Cup last year, with the match draw seeing the two countries miss out on a direct face-off.
Carpenter is understood to have been planning the proposal for some time.
The Cowra-born player worked with Sydney’s Affinity Diamonds to design the two carat oval cut diamond set in 18 carat white gold, with diamonds on the shoulders and a hidden halo.
Carpenter's Matildas teammates were quick to congratulate her, with Sam Kerr, who celebrated her own engagement to Kristie Mewis at a party on New Year’s Eve, commented “Let’s goooo … congrats guys xx” on Carpenter’s post.
Alanna Kennedy, Courtney Nevin and Tameka Yallop were also quick to congratulate the happy couple.
It follows a year of triumph for Carpenter on home soil, after the Matildas’ record-breaking performance at the 2023 Australian FIFA Women’s World Cup saw the team clinch fourth place — the highest any Australian football side has ever achieved in the world cup competition.
Carpenter herself is tipped as a rising star in the football world, who once played for Australia at the Olympics when she was just 15, becoming the youngest ever player to do so.
Originally published as Matildas defender Ellie Carpenter announces engagement
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