Andrea Neil

Who is Andrea Neil?

Andrea Neil is an accomplished female badminton and soccer player.

A long time athlete having played badminton at the junior national level, Neil decided to focus her career on soccer after almost losing her leg to gangrene due to a motorcycle accident in the Dominican Republic. In 1991, at 19, she made her international debut against Jamaica in Haiti. Over the next 18 years she went on to play for her country 132 times, appearing in four FIFA Women's World Cups as a player, including Canada's best ever finish at a FIFA World Cup, when the Canadian women's national team finished fourth in 2003. Neil earned her 100th cap against Costa Rica on March 5, 2004, becoming the second player to do so in Canadian history. On April 21, 2007, prior to the World Cup in China, she represented Canada at the World All Star Game.

Neil attended the University of British Columbia where she earned a degree in human kinetics. She played a key role in UBC's winning of the CIAU National Championship in 1994 and in 1993 was named UBC's female athlete of the year and then was the winner of the Marilyn Pomfret Award. In April 2009 she was inducted into the UBC Sport Hall of Fame.