Soccer took her from D.C. across the Atlantic. Now she's on the rise for the USWNT.

Washington Post

29-04-2025

This spring, 17-year-old Lily Yohannes and her father, Daniel, were at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport when they heard the call to board their flight to the United States.
Lily had grown accustomed to these transatlantic trips: Since her family left Northern Virginia in 2017 to live in the Netherlands, she had flown often with her parents and two older brothers to visit relatives in the D.C. area and Dallas.
For the past year, though, most of her stateside voyages have been not for family purposes but for her blossoming soccer career. A pro with a famous Dutch club since she was 15 and the subject of a tug-of-war for her international services, Yohannes is the youngest and most unconventional prospect on the top-ranked U.S. women's national team.
As they stepped onto that flight to San Francisco in late March, Yohannes turned one way to find her business-class seat, paid for by the U.S. Soccer Federation. Traveling on his own dime, her father headed back to coach.
'Okay, bye. I'm back with the peasants! Don't forget about me,' Daniel, laughing, recalled telling his daughter.
Yohannes has, indeed, worked her way into elite status. In June, eight days before her 17th birthday, she scored in her U.S. debut against South Korea. Early this year, she made her first start for Coach Emma Hayes, who has begun integrating young players into the talent pool as part of the buildup to the 2027 World Cup in Brazil.
Hayes cautions that Yohannes is '17 years of age, and we have to proceed with an appreciation that she hasn't fully matured yet.' Nonetheless, Yohannes is on the right track. She starts in central midfield for Ajax, the Amsterdam club renowned for its men's program and a relative newcomer to the women's game. In November 2023, at 16½, she became the youngest starter in group-stage history of the UEFA women's Champions League, the ultimate testing ground for European teams.
Big clubs in Europe have kept a close eye on Yohannes's progress and, with her Ajax contract expiring after the 2025-26 season, she has become a prized transfer target.
'You can tell Lily has been a pro for a few years in terms of her maturity and the way she carries herself,' said U.S. right back Emily Fox, a fellow Virginian. 'I could go on and on about her assets.'
Yohannes has taken a twisting road from her DMV roots. Her hometown is Springfield, Virginia. She attended D.C. United games at Audi Field and played for youth clubs in Fairfax and Loudoun counties. Several dozen relatives on her father's side live in the D.C. area. Her parents still own the home in the region; they're throwing her an 18th birthday party there this summer.
For close to eight years, though, the Yohanneses have lived in the Dutch village of Muiderberg, 14 miles southeast of Amsterdam. Citing their desire to expand their children's cultural and soccer horizons, Daniel and Semhar Yohannes listed their Virginia home on Airbnb and headed abroad.
One day, Lily was a student at Hunt Valley Elementary School, the next she was off to Europe.
'It was cool,' she said with a shrug. 'I was a 10-year-old, just going with the flow, moving with my family. We had been to Europe before, so it was just sort of like, 'Oh, we're going to Europe.' It was an exciting moment.'
Daniel Yohannes's work in IT risk management provided flexibility. The children were quick to adjust.
'We are of a diverse background,' he said, referencing their Eritrean ancestry. 'We pushed culture and have a different worldview: Let's make that move to a place where there is no language barrier and where there is a good football education.'
He added: 'You get the culture side, the football side — let's give it a try for a couple years. That's how it started.'
Family ties to the Horn of Africa and to soccer run deep. Lily's maternal grandfather, Bokretsion Gebrehiwot, played for the Ethiopian national team and scored a famous goal against Ivory Coast at the 1968 Africa Cup of Nations.
Gebrehiwot immigrated to the United States and helped launch the Eritrean Sports Festival, which rotates among cities and celebrates a diaspora numbering an estimated 50,000. At the 2000 event in Houston, Daniel and Semhar met. They married and settled in the D.C. area.
Moving abroad, 'I missed things at first, but I got used to it,' Lily said. 'The most important thing for us — for me and my brothers — was football. Once we joined clubs and started playing and making friends in school, things became sort of normal and you just sort of adapted.'
The soccer culture in one of the sport's hotbeds was different, too.
'All the kids, going outside, playing on the little [soccer] courts, football sort of was the center of a lot of people's lives in the Netherlands,' she said. 'I just thought that was super cool, always playing and having fun with it.'
At 10, Lily began her Dutch soccer immersion playing on an under-14 team. However, she was not facing the depth of competition she would have received in the United States, where the girls' and women's game have thrived for decades. So her parents moved her to clubs that allowed her to play against boys of her age.
At 11, she caught the attention of the Royal Dutch Football Association and received invitations to regional camps, a pathway to the national program. Although she was not Dutch and couldn't play for the junior national teams, the Dutch federation was laying the groundwork in case she someday became eligible.
Lily thrived at a local youth club before joining Ajax's academy, which, for more than a century, has developed hundreds of world-class men's players. It was also building up its women's program. For Lily, the move seemed right.
'The Ajax mentality, you can really tell the DNA of how they play: attacking football, possession based, technically and tactically strong, just being dominant on the ball,' she said.
Though far from home, she had not gone undetected by the U.S. staff, which invited her to youth camps in 2021 and 2022.
In April 2023, two months shy of her 16th birthday, she signed a pro contract with Ajax.
Though she is younger than her brothers, Lily was first to sign. Aethan, 21, enrolled in D.C. United's academy, played two seasons at Wake Forest University, represented U.S. youth national teams and is now with the under-21 squad at Den Bosch, a Dutch second-division club. Jayden, 19, is also with a second-tier Dutch side, playing for Telstar's U-21s.
Lily's first pro season featured 32 appearances across all competitions, including 28 starts and five goals. Ajax won the Dutch cup, finished second in the league and advanced to the Champions League quarterfinals before losing to Chelsea, which, at the time, was coached by Hayes.
In the middle of the 2023-24 campaign, Lily was invited to the Dutch under-19 national team. Still ineligible to play in official matches, she participated in workouts and continued integrating into the program.
Six months later, though, she accepted an invitation to Hayes's first camp in charge of the U.S. squad. Twelve minutes into her debut, she scored against South Korea. Because it was a friendly, she remained eligible for the Dutch team.
With her profile rising, Lily soon needed to decide her international future. Dutch citizenship was on the horizon, but her roots were American.
She and her parents spoke often with both federations.
'This is a lifetime decision,' Daniel Yohannes said. 'We didn't want her to rush it; let her take her time. She could've gone in either direction. It took her a while to make that call.'
That call came in November, less than a month before the U.S. was scheduled to play a friendly in the Netherlands.
'When you have a big decision to make, it's always thinking about the pros and cons,' she said, 'and about what really speaks to your heart.'
Dutch Coach Andries Jonker did not take it well.
'I read that she dreams of playing in an American shirt her whole life,' he said at a news conference before that international window. 'She could have said that right away. It would have saved [the Dutch federation] a lot of work. … I don't want a player who would rather play in another shirt.'
Daniel Yohannes said Jonker's comments were 'a bit disappointing.' He said others at the Dutch federation were 'super professional, genuinely wonderful people.' When the teams met in Amsterdam, Yohannes entered in the 66th minute. Many fans booed her.
Since then, she has started two SheBelieves Cup matches and appeared as a sub and a starter in friendlies against Brazil in early April.
'It's a step-by-step process,' Hayes said.
Hayes has tasked the roster's veteran core with mentoring prospects, such as Yohannes and 19-year-old midfielder Claire Hutton.
'Sometimes we get so overexcited about the less experienced players, but the more experienced ones that do it again and again and again and again are going to be the key factor in ensuring … players like Lily or Claire feel they can be supported in the right way, so the expectation isn't too ridiculous,' Hayes said.
Yohannes has embraced the guidance.
'Looking up to the [U.S.] teams since I was a little kid and now being here with Emma and my teammates, it's just been great,' she said. 'I'm learning from them in every camp, and I hope for many more experiences in this incredible environment.'