When Angel City selected Lily Nabet in the third round of the 2022 NWSL draft, she almost couldn’t believe it. Heading into the draft, “a lot of people asked me where my ideal place was, and I would say LA,” she remembers. “But, you know, everyone wanted to do that! So when I found out I was coming back, I was like, ‘Wow, that was really God doing things for me.’ There was maybe a one percent chance, and it happened.”
Nabet says “coming back” because she’s an LA native. Born in Tarzana, she chose to attend Duke in part to experience living elsewhere, but her whole family is in the Southland and she says she always knew she’d be back.
Through most of college, she wasn’t even sure if she’d go pro. The timing—Angel City entering their inaugural season as Nabet had just finished her extra year of NCAA eligibility—added to the feeling of serendipity. Growing up, with no local women’s professional team, she’d looked to other leagues and sports for inspiration—to the NBA, like her two older brothers, or the Premier League, which her whole family loves.
With such a strong youth club scene, a Southern California NWSL team almost felt overdue. “I think now that there is a team here, that is very important,” she says. “It's had a huge impact already and it hasn't even been a year yet. I think the biggest thing is just having women athletes be inspirations and mentors for the kids growing up—not just girls, but boys too.”
Nabet, like her teammates, has seen that impact firsthand. She had a full-circle moment with two young fans after one game. “Someone put a jersey in my locker, and it was [Real SoCal,] the club that I played for.”
“And then I got a chance to meet these two girls after the next game. They said, ‘did you get my shirt?’ I said, ‘Oh, my God, yeah, it's in my room.’ It’s awesome, having a little Real SoCal shirt in my room from two little girls.”
That extra year of college—during which Nabet worked toward a Master’s in management at Duke’s Fuqua School of Business, which she’s one class away from completing—didn’t just set her up to be drafted by Angel City. It also got her better prepared to step into the professional ranks. “I think my fifth year allowed me to grow into a [more mature] player,” she says.
Not that any of that was top of mind when she chose to return for a fifth season. The NCAA offered the option because COVID had derailed the college athletic calendar. Nabet wanted one more “normal” season, and another crack at the NCAA Championship after a disappointing result in 2020. “We went to the Elite Eight and played Florida State,” she remembers, “and we lost on PKs. I just didn’t want to end my career on PKs.”
Going back wasn’t an easy decision, but when two senior teammates—Caitlin Cosme and Tess Boade, who now play for Orlando and North Carolina, respectively—decided to return, it felt right. “I felt as though if we could all go back, it would be amazing,” she says. That fifth year also gave Nabet the chance to grow as a leader for the younger players on the team.
Of course, in her first season as a pro, Nabet is now the one learning from her older teammates. “You get comfortable being like the oldest player, the most experienced player, and now being a rookie again, it's like, where can I learn?” she says. “I think the biggest thing is patience—and staying ready is a big one. Cari [Roccaro] has been a big mentor for me in that aspect. She's been walking me through the season and what to expect, because obviously she's been in the league for many years.”
Nabet took that lesson to heart and impressed in her first start for Angel City, on July 1 against Portland. In that game, she led the team in passing accuracy and passing accuracy in the final third (among players with at least three passes), with 87% and 89%, respectively. She also won possession 13 times, more than any player other than center back Paige Nielsen.
She’s continued to put in strong performances since; her passing accuracy for the season is 83%, the best on the team. She also leads in pressure regains per 90, which refers to the team winning the ball back within five seconds of her pressuring an opponent on the ball.
“She's very good on the ball, as the stats would suggest,” says Head Coach Freya Coombe. “She keeps things simple. She keeps the ball ticking over. Her defensive positioning is good. She's got a smart tactical understanding, and we've been really pleased with her and her development this year.”
Every player’s rookie year is a challenge. Being a rookie on an expansion team poses an extra challenge. That may be true at Angel City, which has sold out multiple games in its inaugural season, more than anywhere else. “Something I've noticed is I feel as though we have a target on our back going into games,” says Nabet. “Everybody wants to beat Angel City… it’s definitely preparing us for the playoff run,” she says, as well as the postseason itself, if the team makes it.
In terms of her personal development on the field, Nabet says she’s working on tactical awareness. “Freya has been big on being a possession team,” she says. Duke played a similar style when she was there, but the professional game adds levels of difficulty, especially when it comes to the speed of the game.
According to Coombe, Nabet's growth mindset has been a big factor in her development as a professional. “A key thing for us,” she says, “is Lily’s hunger and her desire to get better. She's someone that works incredibly hard doing extra every day to be better, as good as she can be, and wants to be challenged.”
Nabet also says she’s working on the mental side of playing in the fastest-paced, most competitive league in the world. “Especially for rookies—or even people who’ve been in the league for a long time—it’s hard to stay in it… Just staying locked in, staying focused, because it’s easy to blame fatigue or tiredness for things.”
Staying locked in has been an especially important point in these last two weeks. Angel City has had their most difficult stretch of the season, schedule-wise, at the same moment when they need results the most—and the team is rising to the occasion, with a strong performance against San Diego last weekend and a huge home win against Washington midweek.
Every game counts right now, but Nabet isn’t sweating it. “We’re just focusing on the next game.”