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.