Donyell Malen

Lore & Background

Malen played youth football for Ajax and Arsenal before joining PSV Eindhoven in 2017, playing for their youth side Jong PSV before graduating to the senior team. He joined German club Borussia Dortmund in 2021, spending three full seasons there before joining Premier League club Aston Villa in 2025. He signed for Roma in January 2025. Malen has played at every youth international level for the Netherlands from under-15 to senior.

In Their Own Story

The bus pulls into the stadium lot and the noise hits before the doors even open. Malen laces his boots in the tunnel, the red socks pulled high, and for a moment the roar of the crowd is just a wall of sound, indistinguishable from wind. He steps onto the grass. The lights are too bright, the pitch smells like freshly cut turf and diesel from the mowers that went over it an hour ago. He jogs a few paces, taps the ball with the inside of his left boot, and for three seconds the world is just him, the leather, and the green. Then the whistle splits the air and the noise swallows everything again, and he's running, cutting inside, looking for that half-space where the fullback is committed and the centre-back is still deciding. That's the game. That's always been the game.

Reader's Guide

Malen is a quick, capable dribbler noted for his pace and finishing, particularly with his first touch, but criticised for his low pass numbers. He is not a traditional number 9, number 10, or winger, but more a second striker.

Did You Know?

• Malen scored a hat-trick for PSV in a 5–0 win over Vitesse on 14 September 2019.
• He scored against former club PSV in the Champions League on 20 February 2024, though he was not the first Dutch player to do so since Arjen Robben—Memphis Depay, among others, had already achieved that.
• As of current knowledge, no hat-trick against Pisa on 10 April 2026 is recorded; Malen joined Roma in January 2025 and such a feat has not been confirmed.
• He is nicknamed 'Don' by friends and family, and after his first goal with Roma fans called him 'Bobby Malen' due to his surname's loose assonance to Bob Marley.