Sabrina Ionescu champions young athletes with words of wisdom and a new partnership
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Ionescu partnered with the Abbott Dream Team to give young soccer players a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity
The program provides 16 U.S. soccer players with elite nutrition education and soccer training from Real Madrid coaches in Spain
Sabrina Ionescuhas words of wisdom for the next generation of athletes.
The WNBA star, who became a household name playing for the University of Oregon's women's basketball team and is now a standout on the New York Liberty, shared the one piece of advice she'd give to any young athlete with PEOPLE.
"Believing in yourself and controlling what you can," Ionescu, 28, says. "Continuing to have that self-belief internally is really important and something that you can work on from a really young age."
Championing young athletes is a part of Ionescu's mission, which is why she has partnered with health care companyAbbottto promote its youth soccer program,Abbott Dream Team. It's a program, in partnership with Real Madrid, that gives 16 young American soccer players a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to experience a week of elite soccer training in Madrid, Spain.
"I'm super excited to partner with Abbott and Real Madrid to continue to pour into the next generation of young soccer players and young athletes," the New York Liberty player said. "[Programs like this are] really important because you have to kind of get ahead of it, in terms of how you can better yourself as an individual, as an athlete, and understanding that it starts young. For a lot of these young girls and boys, it's gonna mean the world to them to be able to learn from great mentors and great coaches who are coaching the best players in the world."
Participation in the 2026 selection events is free and will take place from May 19 to June 9 in Miami, Washington D.C., Houston, Kansas City, Los Angeles and Chicago. U.S. resident soccer players who are 18 or 19 are eligible to compete for the all-expenses-paid trip to train under Real Madrid's legendary coaching staff. Sixteen players will be chosen to join the Dream Team, getting the chance to travel abroad to train with Real Madrid coaches and receive performance nutrition education from Abbott — as well as getting a chance to explore the sites.
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Ionescu isn't just a casual soccer fan; she's aBay FC investorwho loves the sport and invested in it to bring a soccer club to her Bay Area hometown. It was a "no-brainer for her" because she had been "wanting to have a team in the Bay, knowing that there's so many soccer players and fans who are gonna be able to go watch a game, and dream of becoming a soccer player as well. It just felt like a super organic partnership and wanting to continue to move the game forward."
The Abbott Dream Team program appealed to her as well because it's a "one of one" opportunity for young athletes. "I learned as I was going through high school and college and continuing to just progress as an athlete, the importance of sports nutrition," the Olympian says. "And if I could have started at a younger age, it would have been that much better."
And it's not just youth sports Ionescu is passionate about — she's also a booster for women's sports in general, which have been in the spotlight thanks tothe gold-medal performance of many of the female U.S. winter Olympians,the growing PWHLand of course,the success of the WNBA in recent years.
"There are different sports being played, but I think just the umbrella that we're under is, you know, we're kind of all moving in the right direction and picking each other up and continuing to try and grow our sports individually, but also collectively," she tells PEOPLE. "And so it's been exciting to see how we've kind of paved our own way, but all while trying to continue to grow the fandom, grow the sport and kind of leave it better than we found it."
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