CLASS OF

2008 Girls Red was the very first team that I coached at VYS in 2022 - shoutout to Jasmari Vallejos, Alivia Compton, Chiso Obi, Rebecca Rothman, and Maggie Wise!

Favorite Memories: "The Gauntlet", Animal Planet, Striker Clinic

To all 2026 Seniors: Thank you for the personality, character, and joy you have brought to VYS over the years. I will never forget the teamwork, growth, and many many laughs that I've had the privilege to witness and experience with you. You are an incredibly special group, and we cannot wait to see the impact you will make on your next journeys. Congratulations!

To the senior girls in the VYS House program and Red 09/08G, CONGRATS! You did it! Thanks for demonstrating the VYS values on and off the field. We'll miss seeing and coaching you on the field.

Seniors?!?!? What, what, what?!? Where did the time go? You all have brought me such joy over the years!! I remember a time when some of you were more excited for the post game snack than the actual games! Those days are long gone. It has been an honor and privilege being your coach! I have watched many of you grow up over the years -- on the field from U-6 all the way up to U-19, and off the field, where you all have become extraordinary young women. I will cherish the memories forever. Onward and upward!! I wish you all the very best!!

In all my years of coaching the 2020/21 season with VYS Phoenix 08 was one of the most fun and enjoyable. These girls loved to play the game and battle together. Thank you for the great memories.

Coach Michel

To our Vienna Youth Soccer graduating seniors—

For thirteen years, as I have coached you from kindergarten through your senior year of high school, soccer fields have been a place of fun and friendship, challenge and growth, competition and community.

From those early practices on the Oakton Elementary School playground to matches this spring at Oakton High School stadium and Oakmont Rec Center, you have learned to play with passion, compete with courage, win with humility, and lose with grace.

In elementary school, you wore jerseys of every color and delighted in creating a shared identity through increasingly imaginative team names. Our kindergarteners were Panthers. First graders became Purple Shrikes—a "predatory songbird more lethal than an eagle," according to the astute six-year-old who proposed the name. Later came Blue Thunder, Yellow Tacos, and Pangolins—chosen to raise awareness of an endangered species—and, eventually, FC Brauer—reflecting aspirations of a more professional future. While team names changed from year to year, the laughter, friendships, and camaraderie of growing up together remained vibrant and constant.

As you progressed to middle school, you adopted red and white VYS jerseys. Some of you pursued training and certification to become VYS referees, earning your yellow and black uniforms and taking on the responsibility of ensuring fair play, protecting the safety of players, and upholding the spirit of the game. Whether as players or referees, all of you learned that respect, integrity, teamwork, and good judgment matter.

As you graduate from high school this spring, North America welcomes World Cup players and fans from around the globe. This seems a fitting coincidence, as a love for soccer transcends borders. Growing up in the diversity of Fairfax County, you formed friendships with teammates from many countries, cultures, languages, and traditions. Year after year, you showed that people from different backgrounds can come together in common purpose and build lasting connections.

Uniforms will be packed away. Fields will welcome a new generation. But lessons learned through VYS soccer will remain, and friendships formed through years of shared effort, challenge, and joy will last a lifetime.

May you carry forward the discipline to pursue excellence, the resilience to overcome adversity, the confidence to lead with empathy, the emotional awareness to understand and uplift others, and the commitment to serve your communities. May you bring to every endeavor the same enthusiasm, energy, and spirit you brought to the game as players and referees.

And may the lessons of these fields endure in the lives you lead and the people you become.