Latest news with #Yohannes
Washington Post
29-04-2025
- Sport
- Washington Post
Soccer took her from D.C. across the Atlantic. Now she's on the rise for the USWNT.
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.'
New York Times
04-04-2025
- Sport
- New York Times
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 The Athletic's Full Time podcast, it was scarcely apparent. 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 The Athletic in Amsterdam just over a year ago. Advertisement 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. '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. '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. '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.
USA Today
28-02-2025
- Sport
- USA Today
Four USWNT takeaways from the 2025 SheBelieves Cup
Four USWNT takeaways from the 2025 SheBelieves Cup Show Caption Hide Caption Megan Rapinoe on what Coach Emma Hayes brings to the USWNT Megan Rapinoe explains why she's all in on Coach Emma Hayes and what she brings to the U.S. Women's National Team. Sports Seriously The U.S. women's national team didn't win the SheBelieves Cup, but that doesn't mean the tournament was a total loss. Far from it, in fact. For the first time in six years, the USWNT fell short in the SheBelieves Cup, as Japan took home the tournament by defeating Emma Hayes' side 2-1 in the finale. The U.S. began the tournament with a comfortable 2-0 win over Colombia, before a 2-1 victory over Australia. Hayes will have learned plenty from the USWNT's successes and failures over the three-game event, even if she won't necessarily be pleased to have lost her first game as the team's head coach. Part of that learning came from some notable absences. The USWNT's "Triple Espresso" front line, center back Naomi Girma, and midfielder Rose Lavelle were all absent, creating opportunities for Hayes to see other options. Here are some of the biggest takeaways from the SheBelieves Cup. Midfield is in good hands If we weren't aware before the SheBelieves Cup, we know now: The USWNT is going to have an absolutely fierce competition at central midfield moving forward. That was underlined by the emergence of two teenage stars during the tournament, Lily Yohannes and Claire Hutton. Both players were superb in their first USWNT starts — Yohannes against Colombia and Hutton against Australia. Yohannes wasn't quite as effective against Japan but also provided some moments of true quality. Also: she's 17. The emergence of Yohannes and Sutton figures to put real pressure on Sam Coffey and Korbin Albert in defensive/holding midfield roles. Coffey appears to be more entrenched than Albert, but the latter continues to enjoy plenty of trust from Hayes. Jaedyn Shaw is undoubtedly a key piece of the USWNT's future, but there are two main questions surrounding the 20-year-old: How soon is that future, and where will she be playing? On evidence of the SheBelieves Cup, Shaw looks much more comfortable as a No. 10, where she thrived against Australia, than as a winger, where she struggled against Japan. But breaking through as a 10 will be a major challenge because of two USWNT mainstays over the past decade: Rose Lavelle and Lindsey Heaps. Lavelle turns 30 this year and continues to be hampered by injuries. Heaps is already 30 and in truth, hasn't been at her best for the USWNT for the better part of the last year (want proof? Just ask her). Lavelle missed the SheBelieves Cup due to injury, while Heaps again failed to make a major impact. Both players still have a role to play for the USWNT if fit and firing, but it's worth questioning whether the best version of the team's central midfield includes either player right now. Goalkeeper still a major question One of, if not the biggest issue to resolve for Hayes in 2025 revolves around the team's goalkeeper position. After several years as the team's unquestioned starter, Alyssa Naeher retired from international duty at the end of 2024. That left a wide-open competition to be her replacement, which Hayes wants to have down to the final three by the end of the SheBelieves Cup. If Hayes was hoping for one of her two rostered goalkeepers for the SheBelieves Cup to grab the position by the scruff of the neck, she'll probably come away disappointed. Jane Campbell started two of the team's three games, neither of which resulted in the Houston Dash goalkeeper putting in a standout display. Against Colombia she had zero shots to save and precious little to do. Against Japan, she wasn't directly at fault for either goal, but could have done better on both as well. But Mandy McGlynn didn't make her best case either. Given a chance against Australia, the Utah Royals shot-stopper was shaky in a couple moments while also doing well to punch away a number of balls lofted into the box. The Matildas' only shot on goal was a close-range header McGlynn could do little about. Hayes' roster selections for April's friendlies against Brazil will be telling. Will she bring either goalkeeper back? Will she give Phallon Tullis-Joyce — who was a training player on this roster — a chance to play in a game? Or will names like Casey Murphy, Aubrey Kingsbury, Angelina Anderson or Claudia Dickey get back in the mix? Ally Sentnor is ready for this It was only fitting that Ally Sentnor's first international goal was a long-range banger. The strike against Colombia meant five of the Utah Royals forward's first six career goals came from outside the box. But that goal wouldn't be Sentnor's last in a breakout SheBelieves Cup. Sentnor also scored the USWNT's only goal against Japan, in addition to an assist against Australia. She was the only USWNT player to score multiple goals in the tournament, and led the team with three goal contributions. Perhaps no USWNT player boosted their stock more in this SheBelieves Cup than Sentnor, who only debuted for the national team late last year and now looks like one of Hayes' top forward options behind Triple Espresso. 'Ally has demonstrated in her rise through the youth national teams and in her first pro year that she's got qualities that can decide a game,' Hayes said after the loss to Japan. 'She certainly finishes the very minimal chances she might get, and that's what top players possess. I think she's got that, and it will build her confidence to have had this tournament and be given a couple of starts.' The USWNT has plenty of depth behind Triple Espresso, but at 21, Sentnor has shown she is a valuable piece for the future — and the present. Mission accomplished for Hayes The SheBelieves Cup is a somewhat nebulous competition when it comes to judging its importance. Sure, it's called a "tournament" but for official purposes, it's really just three friendlies in a row. With more than two years until the next competition the USWNT truly cares about, the World Cup, Hayes took advantage of the chance to experiment with her player pool at the SheBelieves Cup. 'I always go back to what our objectives were in the first place, and that was to deepen our playing pool with opportunities in high-pressure situations against top opponents. That's what tonight especially is about," Hayes said after the Japan game. Hayes' goal was also helped by some absences of key players. With no Triple Espresso, Girma or Lavelle, there were open positions across all three lines of the USWNT's lineup. Having a full compliment of players may have resulted in the USWNT, you know, actually winning the tournament, but the outcome of this year's competition could prove more beneficial than an alternative reality where a full-strength USWNT beats Japan. There is no better experience for a player like Yohannes than to face the ferocious press of Japan, or for a player like Shaw to be the conductor of the team's attack against Australia. Tara McKeown, who only converted to defense a couple years ago, got significant minutes in all three games. The list goes on. 'You want to learn this lesson now," Hayes said on TBS after the Japan game. "It allows me to say these are the things we have to do at the highest level. That's what development is. We're not playing for the World Cup today. We'll be back, don't worry about it. We'll be back.'
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.
