Lily Yohannes did not want her father’s mispronunciation of the viral TikTok dance popularized by Allen Davis mentioned in this story.
We were discussing, over platters of calamari, whether she was the first player at Ajax Football Club to hit “The Griddy.” It wasn’t something she’d considered before. After consulting with her older brothers, Aethan and Jayden, they concluded that while she wasn’t the first player in the Dutch pro league to do it, she might be the first at Ajax and was almost certainly the first on the women’s team.
Less than a year after becoming the youngest player to sign a professional contract with Ajax when she was 15, Lily was dancing “The Griddy” after slotting balls into the back of the net for the Dutch side. Now, her photo hangs in the halls of the legendary Johan Cruijff ArenA, supporters swell at the sound of her name, she has signed a contract with Adidas, and last week, she earned her first call-up to the U.S. women’s national team for the SheBelieves Cup in Atlanta and Columbus — the youngest inclusion since Sophia Smith in 2017.
Having lived in the Netherlands for nearly seven years, she is not yet eligible to play for the Dutch national team, who have also expressed an interest in her, but she is in the process of applying…
