Daniela Montoya

Formas Íntimas

Montoya came through and spent the early part of her career at Formas Íntimas of Medellín, for many years the dominant club in Antioquia and a regular in continental competition. She played in seven editions of the Copa Libertadores Femenina between 2009 and 2015, finishing third in 2009 and reaching the final in 2013, and won four consecutive Copa Pre-Libertadores titles from 2012 to 2015. She also represented Antioquia at the Colombian National Games, winning gold in 2008 and silver in 2012.

Futsal

Alongside her football career, Montoya played futsal to a high level. She co-founded the team Futsasa with her twin sister in 2008 and played for Paisitas de Antioquia before moving to Spain to join Burela of Galicia, where she scored 11 goals in 19 matches, won the Copa de la Xunta de Galicia and finished as a runner-up in the Spanish league; her scoring earned her the nickname "la bombardera". She has also been capped by Colombia's national futsal team.

Levante

Montoya returned to Spain in 2016 to play football for Levante, making 11 league appearances.

Colombian clubs and Al-Riffa

Back in Colombia, Montoya played for Envigado and then Junior of Barranquilla. In 2019 she had a brief spell in Bahrain with Al-Riffa, for whom she scored once in four matches at the 2019 WAFF Women's Clubs Championship. She later played ten league matches for Independiente Medellín, scoring twice, and returned to Junior in 2022, scoring three…

Early years

Montoya played for Colombia at the 2010 FIFA U-20 Women's World Cup in Germany, scoring twice against Costa Rica, and made her senior debut the same year. She was a runner-up at the 2010 South American Women's Football Championship, scoring against Uruguay, and went on to play at the 2011 FIFA Women's World Cup, where Colombia were eliminated in the group stage, and at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, appearing in two of the three matches.

2014–2015

Montoya was a runner-up again at the 2014 Copa América Femenina and won silver at the 2014 Central American and Caribbean Games, where she scored in the semi-final against Venezuela. She took a second Pan American Games silver medal at the 2015 Games in Toronto. At the 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup in Canada, Montoya scored in a 1–1 draw with Mexico on 9 June 2015 — the first goal Colombia had scored at a Women's World Cup. The BBC likened the long-range strike to James Rodríguez's goals at the men's tournament a year earlier.

Exclusion from the national team

After the 2015 World Cup, Montoya publicly criticised the Colombian Football Federation over unpaid bonuses and the conditions in which the squad worked. She was left out of Colombia's preparations for the 2016 Summer Olympics and went roughly 18 months without a call-up, having been a fixture in the side for a decade. In a 2019 interview with El Tiempo she described writing to federation officials seeking an explanation, and said the…

Montoya was born on 22 August 1990 in Medellín and grew up in the Holanda neighbourhood of Sabaneta, in Antioquia. Her father, Juan Guillermo Montoya, had played as a midfielder for Sabaneta's municipal side, and her mother is Martha Quiroz; she is the youngest of five sisters and has a twin, Daryi, born ten minutes before her. She began playing in the street at around the age of seven and joined the local youth club Visión 2020, taking part in a boys' tournament in southern Sabaneta as the only girl in it. She has said that at the time "people didn't approve of me playing", and she was subjected to slurs about girls playing football. She later studied sport at the Politécnico Colombiano Jaime Isaza Cadavid.

Formas Íntimas

Copa Pre-Libertadores: 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 Copa Libertadores Femenina runner-up: 2013 Burela (futsal)

Copa de la Xunta de Galicia Spanish league runner-up: 2013–14 Grêmio

Campeonato Gaúcho: 2025 Colombia

CONMEBOL Women's Nations League: 2025–26 Pan American Games gold medal: 2019 Pan American Games silver medal: 2015 Copa América Femenina runner-up: 2010, 2014, 2022, 2025 Central American and Caribbean Games silver medal: 2014 Individual

Copa América Femenina team of the tournament: 2022