Latest news with #LilyYohannes
Times
2 days ago
- Business
- Times
World Sevens: DJs, ‘party deck' — and the millions to revolutionise game
Don't be fooled by the funky rules, loud music and late-season scheduling. Women's football's new seven-a-side tournament is not a cheap gimmick. Granted, a walk around the venue within the modest Estadio Antonio Coimbra da Mota in Estoril, Portugal, made last week's inaugural World Sevens Football (W7F) event feel frivolous. One of the three temporary stands is a plush players' lounge, from which participants watched their rivals on comfy sofas or plastic chairs. At the other end lies the comically named 'party deck', in which the atmosphere was sedate despite residing next to a tent serving alcohol. On one side of the ground, either side of a DJ playing in-game music, the VIPs were sitting grandly in cabanas. Meanwhile, the action on the pitch was often bizarre. Before each game, the teams lined up opposite each other as though they were about to break into rugby-style war dances, only to advance jovially and shake hands with one (weirdly, always only one) opponent. No offsides meant players popped up in random places. When Ajax's Lily Yohannes strode up to a penalty, the Jaws theme music started playing. Yet W7F's wacky elements signal its championing of fun, and the disdain for convention characterises its potential to transform. With its financial heft, truncated format and existence separate from traditional competitions, the impact on women's football could be seismic. This was no end-of-season jolly for the participating eight clubs, which included Manchester City and Manchester United. Fronted by Jennifer Mackesy, a Chelsea minority owner, US-based investors have committed $100million (about £75million) to a W7F series over the next five years. That is a huge sum, as is the $5million prize pot in Estoril. The first W7F winners, Bayern Munich, won $2.5million (about £1.86million), four times more than the £430,000 Chelsea got for winning the Women's FA Cup this month. Even Arsenal took their cumulative prize money to only £1.1million by winning the Champions League — and that was for a whole season's work, rather than three days. Players and staff received 40 per cent of the prize money, encouraging them to compete seriously. Nicola Keating, who was in Estoril watching her 20-year-old daughter Khiara play for City, hinted at the high stakes. 'It's a life-changing opportunity for whichever team wins,' she said. 'For men, this would probably be a drop in the ocean, but for women that could be how many months' wages? It's life-changing money.' Participants were reluctant to discuss the potential winnings but thinking about the payday would only be natural. 'As you get closer to the prize money and being the first winner, the jeopardy starts to come in and tactics start to change,' City's head coach, Nick Cushing, said. Manchester United's situation epitomises the money's power. Marc Skinner, their head coach, has stressed that his squad needs investment but Sir Jim Ratcliffe, the United co-owner, has cited the relative lack of turnover when explaining his limited focus on the women's team. Pocketing £740,000 in three days, as United did by finishing runners-up to Bayern, could fund Skinner's transfer plans and display the potential of women's football to Ratcliffe. Equally, the tournament is not a soulless pursuit of cash. The small pitch (half the size of an 11-a-side one), rolling substitutes, 15-minute halves and no offsides create attacking football compatible with Gen Z attention spans and enjoyed by players. 'It's a higher intensity, but more free,' Grace Clinton, the United midfielder, said. 'You can play, be skilful, link up, and it's very unpredictable. You just don't know what's going to happen, but it's more enjoyable [than 11-a-side].' There were 16 goals in 120 minutes on day one, and so great is the commitment to fun that Bayern Munich's Tuva Hansen had her yellow card rescinded after taking off her shirt in celebration. Yet amid so much money, fun and innovation, it may seem too good to be true. So what's the catch? The starting point is financial. Only 3,500 tickets were sold over the three days, and the broadcast deal with DAZN alone will not move Mackesy's group into the black. The tournament must enhance revenue streams. 'We would love to see cities around the world want to bring us into their communities and partner with them,' Mackesy said. Indeed, W7F needs to live up to its global identity. While all eight teams in Estoril are European, the second event at the end of this year will be held in the Americas. Justin Fishkin, Mackesy's co-founder, detailed plans for four 'regional' events before the fifth served as a world championship. Cracking the enormous women's football market of the United States, the expected location for the second event, is also crucial. Nonetheless, Mackesy and Fishkin were guarded over their business strategy, so W7F's road to sustainability remains uncertain. The fan experience could improve too, because the atmosphere at the 5,100-capacity stadium rarely turned lively before the Friday night final. Mackesy mooted using bigger stadiums, or springing up a venue in a large park. Organisers perhaps sacrificed hosting in a bigger women's football nation to be on the Champions League final's doorstep, but this move was symbolic. While there is a desire to co-operate with governing bodies such as Fifa and Uefa, W7F is disturbing women's football's status quo. Expansion beyond eight teams is envisaged and the women's football calendar is already packed. Fiskin emphasised working around the existing schedule but Tobin Heath, the former United States international who chairs the W7F advisory council, was more combative. 'The schedules are going to clear, just look at the prize pool we set,' she told the Full Time podcast. With the successes tangible and concerns mostly hypothetical, W7F's genesis in Portugal was pretty good. And when an event is this lucrative and eyebrow-raising, a qualified success is enough to ignite revolution.
Yahoo
3 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
US women cruise past China in friendly win
Catarina Macario celebrates her opening goal for the USA in a 3-0 win over China on Saturday (Kerem YUCEL) The United States romped to a 3-0 win over China in a women's international football friendly on Saturday, as the former world champions' renaissance under coach Emma Hayes continued. Goals from Catarina Macario, Sam Coffey and Lindsey Heaps delivered a convincing win for the American women, who dominated a fragile Chinese side at Saint Paul, Minnesota. Advertisement It was the 17th win in 21 games for the USA's English head coach Hayes, who was tasked with restoring the Americans to the summit of the women's game following their early 2023 World Cup exit. Hayes, who led the USA to a gold medal at last year's Olympics, is preparing her squad for this year's qualifiers for the 2027 World Cup in Brazil. The former Chelsea manager would have liked what she saw in a fluid first half performance that saw China's risky tactical decision to play with a high line punished ruthlessly. Macario opened the scoring after 28 minutes, bundling home a close-range finish after good work from Alyssa Thompson. Advertisement The USA doubled their tally seven minutes later with a brilliantly worked goal, which began when the gifted 17-year-old midfielder Lily Yohannes released Thompson down the right who crossed for Macario. Macario played a short pass into Coffey, who swept home with aplomb. Macario and Heaps both threatened to add to the USA tally with long-range shots that were just off target before half-time. Heaps though bagged the USA's third in the 54th minute, nodding in past China goalkeeper Pan Hongyan to effectively seal the win. The USA face Jamaica in a friendly in on Tuesday. rcw/bb
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Target live betting in Champions League final
U.S. Women's Soccer Team returns to Allianz Field [RAW] The U.S. Women's Soccer Team is in St. Paul this week, hosting China in an international friendly on Saturday. The Americans had training on Tuesday at Allianz Field. Players Lily Yohannes and Sam Coffey spoke with reporters after. 11:26 Now Playing Paused Ad Playing
Yahoo
04-04-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
After rapid rise through USWNT ranks, 17-year-old Lily Yohannes is focused on steady growth
After rapid rise through USWNT ranks, 17-year-old Lily Yohannes is focused on steady growth If Lily Yohannes succumbed to the eight-hour jetlag between her home in the Netherlands and Southern California when she sat down late Tuesday afternoon for an interview on's Full Time podcast, it was scarcely apparent. Advertisement The 17-year-old U.S. women's national team midfielder selected her words just as carefully from her Los Angeles hotel as she did from the Ajax training facility the first time she spoke with in Amsterdam just over a year ago. Many things have changed since then, namely, Yohannes' decision to represent the United States at the international level, and not the Netherlands. But her composed consideration is by design, a mechanism to keep her feet planted firmly in the present. 'I think just trying to stay as present as I can,' she said when asked how she manages the pace of her career. 'I've been grateful to have experienced so many great moments in such a short career so far. I think just having a great support system around me with my family, coaches, teammates, and them all just helping me to stay grounded, stay on track.' In Los Angeles, head coach Emma Hayes has made clear that the U.S. women's national team is in very early World Cup-building mode, with a year until the team's first qualifiers of the 2027 cycle. She is relinquishing a focus on chemistry to properly assess players. However, demands for excellence have always been part and parcel of this team, and Yohannes has already felt the impact of Hayes' approach. Advertisement 'I've already grown and learned so much from her in a year or so,' she said. 'You can really feel how much she is invested in every player, every player's development in this environment, and I think she just pushes the standard and has expectations of what she wants from us and how she wants us to play, and I think just trying to be intentional (with) every detail.' Even as women's soccer continues to mature, there remains a fixation on its youth, particularly in the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL), which boasts a hyper-competitive table of teams eager to bolster their rosters with fresh talent but lacks the culture and structure of Europe's youth academy development system. That, combined with the lucrative opportunities of the American sports and entertainment market, intensifies the impulse to catapult teenage soccer phenoms into stardom. Considering Yohannes' unflappable style of play at the age of 17, it is less surprising that she has remained committed to steadiness as her professional world expands. 'I've gotten some advice of, 'Don't get too high on the highs and too low on the lows' and just trying to stay steady through it all,' she said. 'For me, I have so many more goals that I want to achieve and obviously I celebrate the great achievements, but also just know that there's more that (I) want and more goals that (I) want to accomplish.' Advertisement Yohannes has already crossed some considerable goals off her list. She signed her first professional contract with Ajax when she was 15. A Champions League run with the club followed shortly thereafter, and Yohannes became the youngest player to start in a group stage match in the continental tournament. That year, Ajax reached the quarterfinals but was knocked out by Chelsea — who Hayes was coaching. Yohannes received her first invitation to the U.S. national team camp later that month as the team prepared for the SheBelieves Cup, an opportunity that did not tie her to the team but provided an up-close glimpse of the national team environment while she continued to consider her commitment. Yohannes earned her first cap on June 4 in a U.S. friendly against South Korea, a debut in which she scored a goal 10 seconds after stepping onto the pitch as a 72nd-minute substitute for midfielder Korbin Albert. Yohannes announced her commitment to play for the U.S. five months later on Nov. 11 and featured for the national team later that month and in early December in fixtures against England and the Netherlands. Now, with the team's Olympic gold medal run in the rearview mirror and its far-sighted visions set on the 2027 World Cup in Brazil, Yohannes said she can get back to another, quieter yet no less crucial goal: growth. Advertisement 'In the short term, (it's) staying present and continuing to work and grow with club and at the international level,' she said. 'With the national team, just trying to take every experience that I can and learning and growing in this environment. It's always an honor to come into camp and I just want to perform and help this team as best I can, and do the same at club.' At the moment, Ajax is in a tight title race in the Eredivisie between Twente, currently at the top of the table, and PSV, who are ahead of Ajax but level with Twente on points. Just one point separates Ajax, who won the league title last year, from the other contenders. Conversations around opportunities in Europe are gaining traction in the U.S. women's soccer landscape, especially after defender Naomi Girma's $1.1 million move to Chelsea, something Yohannes acknowledged as a sign of growth. 'I've been in the Netherlands since I was 10, and that's sort of just normal for me. I think playing in the academy system with the boys and then at Ajax has helped me to develop, and I would say everybody's path is different,' she said. 'It's just per your own personal choices, and I think it's great to have so many great leagues all over the globe.' Advertisement She added that beginning her career in Europe meant focusing on the technical and tactical aspects of the game and that playing against other European teams and being exposed to a variety of playing styles has only benefited her. 'Ajax is a very possession-oriented team playing attacking football and having a sort of DNA has helped me to develop and grow qualities in my game,' she said. 'I think within Europe as a whole, it's super diverse which is amazing, having Champions League and all those diverse teams and clubs come together and compete against each other.' Yohannes isn't the only player in the U.S. camp who had options as to which country she could represent, nor is she the only player who pursued opportunities in Europe at a young age. Although Catarina Macario's path was markedly different from Yohannes' — the Brazilian-American forward completed three seasons at Stanford before setting off for Europe, first with Olympique Lyonnais and now Chelsea — the two have formed a bond after just two camps together. Advertisement 'Cat's super cool. I think we have a great bond on and off the pitch,' Yohannes said. 'I think she sort of took me under her wing when I first came into camp. Last camp was our first time playing together, so I know that's something we were both looking forward to. Cat's just such an amazing player with so much quality, so I've really enjoyed playing with her and off the field (we're) having a good time.' If given the chance again to partner in the U.S. attack against Brazil — first at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles on Saturday and again at San Jose's PayPal Park on Tuesday, April 8 — Yohannes and Macario's combined creativity on the ball could prove enough to withstand the South American team's attempt at revenge after falling to the U.S. 1-0 in the Paris Olympics gold medal match last summer. This article originally appeared in The Athletic. US Women's national team, Soccer, NWSL, UK Women's Football 2025 The Athletic Media Company
Yahoo
21-02-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Lily Yohannes, at age 17, is already a USWNT game-changer
Lily Yohannes burst onto the U.S. women's national team scene last year with a debut goal and an irresistible 16-year-old smile. But what she did Thursday night for the USWNT, and what she does wherever she goes, is far more important and impressive. Yohannes, now 17, is playmaker. And she made a play Thursday, on the opening night of the SheBelieves Cup, that most U.S. midfielders have never made in their lives. She picked up her head, and pinged a lovely ball into limited space behind Colombia's defense. Yazmeen Ryan ran onto it, and fizzed it across the six-yard box to Cat Macario — who will rightly nab headlines for her first USWNT goal in nearly three years, the first of a 2-0 U.S. win. But it was Yohannes who ran the show. It was the 17-year-old's composure that helped the USWNT settle into a choppy, chippy first half. And it's her distribution that fundamentally changes who the USWNT is and what it can be. Advertisement This was Yohannes' first start for the national team, and just her second game since committing to play for the U.S. rather than for the Netherlands. She was a mildly surprising inclusion in the starting 11, given that all three midfielders who started the Olympic final last summer — Lindsey Heaps (née Horan), Sam Coffey and Korbin Albert — were present, fit and available. Their skill sets, though, are somewhat redundant. Yohannes is different. At 17, she already has a passing range that is unparalleled, and perhaps unprecedented, in the U.S. player pool. HOUSTON, TEXAS - FEBRUARY 20: Lily Yohannes #11 of USA passes the ball in the first half against Colombia during the 2025 SheBelieves Cup at Shell Energy Stadium on February 20, 2025 in Houston, Texas. (Photo by) (Jack Gorman via Getty Images) Her technical ability is no fluke. And that she's the only USWNT player raised abroad is no coincidence. Yohannes and her family moved to the Netherlands when Lily was 10 — and escaped a U.S. youth soccer system that often prizes physical prowess over technique and tactical awareness. Yohannes, instead, joined the famed academy at Ajax Amsterdam as a young teen. And she developed an understanding of the sport that few American players ever gain. Advertisement She progressed rapidly through the Ajax ranks. She was starting Champions League games by age 16. That's when she grabbed the attention of U.S. Soccer. She earned her first USWNT call-up last spring. And less than a year later, she's a difference-maker. A game-changer. A locksmith and a line-breaker. Yohannes spent the first half of Thursday's game spraying passes side to side, and injecting life into a U.S. attack that, without its Triple Espresso front three, might have otherwise been stagnant. Her diagonals to both wings stretched Colombia. And her lofted through-ball to Ryan for the goal broke the visitors. Advertisement In the second half, Ally Sentnor, another young stud, doubled the U.S. lead. Sentnor is a versatile forward, but it was her one standout skill that all but sealed the win: her swerving, knuckling shots from distance. Sentnor can strike a ball with frightening power and stunning ease. She's done it at youth levels. She's doing it in the NWSL. Now, at 21, she's done it for the USWNT. Shooting, though, is not a foreign trait. Yohannes' smoothness, and calmness, and vision, and passing ambition are. That's why she's so vital to the USWNT's future — and present. Yohannes played in a No. 8 role, lower than Heaps (née Horan) but ahead of Coffey, as a deep playmaker with license to get forward. She provided solutions in early phases of possession, checking to the ball and safeguarding it. In latter phases, her progressive passing provided dynamism. And, crucially, she has grown. She was not physically overmatched Thursday, nor overwhelmed by the pace of the international game. She was solid defensively alongside Coffey. Late into the second half, she was racing back into the USWNT's own penalty area to block shots with a lunging, outstretched right leg. In stoppage time, she was breaking up Colombian counters. Advertisement She is, of course, still only 17. She will not do this every game. Like other teen phenoms, Yohannes will surely have her bumps, her ups and downs, her struggles. Before long, she'll be navigating a move to a big European club, and growing popularity, and adulthood. USWNT head coach Emma Hayes and the program will understandably be hesitant to rush her. But Yohannes belongs. She belongs in the USWNT starting 11 ahead of Albert. She is already a ceiling-lifter.
