Lily Yohannes: the 16-year-old breaking Champions League records

When Lily Yohannes made her Women’s Champions League debut she also became, at the age of 16, the youngest player ever to start a group stage match in the competition. She announced her entrance on the big stage by neatly threading a ball through Paris Saint-Germain’s backline in the build-up to the first goal of a momentous Ajax victory.

“I was really excited. Playing in the Champions League was my dream as a kid,” Yohannes says. “It was an experience that I can’t put into words.”

Yohannes was born in Springfield, Virginia, and having football on the TV was part of life in her house. “My dad used to train us in the basement of our house. He and I would team up and go against my two brothers. I fell in love with kicking a ball as soon as I started playing at around four years old,” she says. Unlike most kids, Yohannes did not dabble with other sports. From the start, it was only ever football.

At nine, while playing with a local girls’ team, Yohannes joined Under-11 boys’ tournaments without missing a beat. A year later, in 2017, she moved to the Netherlands because of her dad’s work. The original plan was for the family to stay for a few years before returning to the US. But they’re still there, and Lily and her two brothers continued their football education in Europe. Though she was in a different environment, Yohannes was quick to adapt and thrive.

“When we moved to the Netherlands I joined a boys’ team. I was considered as a top-level player for a girl, so I slotted in with the boys and that is pretty normalized here. While in the US, I really only played with the girls most of the time, which was the main difference but I adapted pretty quickly,” she says. What took Yohannes by surprise was the strength of football culture in the Netherlands. “Football is everything here,” she says. “Everybody talks about football, everybody.”

In fact, in the first few months of landing in Europe and joining a team, she was an MVP and finalist in a Under-11 boys’ tournament. Not long after she snatched awards in every competition going, Ajax was on the phone to offer her a trial. “Ajax is such a big club and I always watched them growing up. I was really happy and excited when they called,” she says.

Unsurprisingly, she impressed the coaches. Even though Yohannes had been playing football for over a decade, this was only the beginning of her journey.

Known for the pipeline of talent it has produced in the men’s game, Ajax has built a structure to breed impeccable female players too.

“On the women’s side, there are two steps to reach the first team. I started with the Talent Academy which included players aged 10 to about 16,” Yohannes says. “We still played with the boys because the setup is mixed. I trained with my regular boys’ team three times a week with a game on Saturday, while training once a week with the girls … with tournaments during breaks. A combined four days of training and a match a week was normal for me.”

Club coaches keep a close eye on the Talent Academy, and they select promising players to join the reserve teams. “I took the step of joining the reserves at 15 as the youngest Ajax women’s reserve team player. We trained four times a week with a game on the weekend so it goes busy really quickly,” Yohannes says. “What stood out was how the Ajax playing style follows throughout the youth stages. You know the style of play from the moment you join the academy. Once I made the step to the first team, I didn’t have to change everything I learned.”

In December 2022 the club, thrilled with Yohannes’s development in the reserves, laid out a plan to get promote her to the first team in the upcoming season.

The midfielder would be invited to join the senior squad in training. Four months later at the age of 15, Yohannes signed her first professional contract. Was it hard to make a huge decision that young?

“The decision of whether or not I wanted to make that pro step was not too difficult. Since I was a little kid, I always wanted to become a professional player,” she says. “I knew from the moment the opportunity came, I wanted to follow through with it. It was great to be fully with the first team. Since I had trained quite a bit with them the season before, it felt like a good transition. Everybody was really welcoming and helped me settle in well. It was a great adjustment, to be honest.”

The Ajax squad consists of 34 Dutch players and Yohannes as the lone non-European. But many of her teammates are close to her age: the squad average is 23.6, the youngest in the Women’s Champions League this season.

“We have a great team that facilitates a great environment. It pushes me to develop and get better every day,” she says. “There is a great mix of younger and older players. Sherida [Spitse] is our captain, she is a leader of the team on and off the pitch. I take a lot from just watching and seeing how she does things, and she’s always coaching us and giving tips.”

Narrowing down Yohannes’s best qualities is a tough task, given her excellence across the board. But she knows her strengths. “I’m composed on the ball, my dribbling, my ability to progress the ball, defensively strong in duels and, offensively creating goal scoring opportunities for my teammates,” she says. She adds that her family help too. “I have my family and support system around me who keep me grounded and focused.”

Balancing professional football, school and a social life is a problem Yohannes solves thanks to “really good time management”.

Soon to be added to the growing to-do list will be international football. Though she represented the United States in the Under-15/16 age groups, Yohannes hasn’t been called up to a national team squad since 2022. She does not hold a Dutch passport but is eligible to apply for one having lived in the country for more than six years.

“It’s something I’m not too focused on,” she says of the decision. “But [I’m] interested to see what the future holds.”

For now, US Soccer seems to have forgotten about the youngest starter in UWCL history. For over a year, the national team’s youth setups have focused on amateur, domestic players rather than those plying their trade in Europe. But Yohannes isn’t worried. “I try not to think about pressure because I just enjoy playing football,” she says.