Edina’s Harvard-bound Lou Ruffien looks to cement spot on French women’s national soccer team

The “Statue of Lou-berty” started as an inside joke in the Edina High School girls soccer program.

When Lou Ruffien was helping the Hornets reach three consecutive Minnesota State High School League Class 3A state championship games, the nickname was a sign of gratitude that France had given another gift to the U.S. This time, instead of a towering copper statue, it was a crafty midfielder who moved to Minnesota at age 4.

But it’s time for Ruffien to head back across the Atlantic. Before playing college soccer at Harvard, the rising senior will spend a year abroad in the academy of professional soccer club Paris FC, hoping to cement her spot in the French national team program.

In a whirlwind summer, plans came together rather quickly, but Ruffien was ready when the opportunity presented itself.

“The French national team has always been in the back of my mind,” she said.

Former Edina girls soccer coach Katie Aafedt mentored a long list of talented Hornets during her 11 seasons with the program, but Ruffien was “easily the most technical player I’ve ever coached,” she said.

Ruffien was just 13 at her first high school tryout, thanks to a late October birthday, but she could juggle the ball with her feet endlessly. That finesse and control would help her record 36 goals and 23 assists across three seasons with Edina, and earn her a spot on last fall’s All-Minnesota girls soccer team.

“I’m getting goosebumps thinking of one very specific memory — our [2023] section final,“ Aafedt said, recalling a win-or-go-home game for which future-Atlantic Coast Conference Freshman of the Year Izzy Engle was absent due to obligations to the U.S. youth national team. ”At halftime, I said, ‘Lou, we need you.’ I need you to put this team on your back. And she did.“

Ruffien, now 16, started playing soccer shortly after her mom’s work brought the family to Edina. Her extended family remains on France’s north coast. When they would make annual trips back, Ruffien would dream of playing for a big European soccer club and, eventually, the national team.

Last summer, when college coaches could begin contacting the talented midfielder, around 65 schools expressed interest in offering Ruffien a scholarship, said her mom, Sandra. Ruffien gravitated toward the largely international roster and coaching staff at Harvard, even if it took Aafedt convincing Ruffien she would be admitted.

In addition to playing club soccer at Minnesota Thunder Academy, Ruffien is also an avid futsal player — a type of fast-paced soccer played on a hard court with a weighted ball, emphasizing technical skills. While at a Barcelona futsal tournament, Ruffien met another family whose daughter played at one of the top women’s clubs in France, Paris FC. Contact info was exchanged, Ruffien reached out to the club, and she scored an invite for a short trial after her junior season.

When she told Harvard head coach Chris Hamblin about the tryout, he offered her one better. He had connections with the French national program and could help make introductions. Ruffien “took it and ran with it,” said Aafedt.

One April week in France put Ruffien in front of evaluators for both club and country. The three-day trial with Paris FC went well, and then she spent two days playing with some of the nation’s top youth players.

“I need you to answer the phone” was the text that Aafedt received while on spring break. Ruffien “could barely spit it out,” she was so excited, said her coach.

Suddenly, Ruffien was headed to the Under-17 European Championships.

The French coaching staff admitted it was rather unprecedented, said Sandra — bringing in a new player right before a major tournament, after the rest of the team spent multiple training camps gelling.

In May, Ruffien was whisked away to the Faroe Islands, the host of the “Euros” tournament settled between Iceland and Norway and above the United Kingdom. Their island held four hotels, endless sheep and the best teenage soccer players in Europe, who spent off days hiking the steep coastal cliffs.

For a technical player like Ruffien, meshing with the style of her new team was challenging: more short, quick passes than she was used to. Instead of the direct, attacking style of play often emphasized in girls soccer in the U.S., “we couldn’t play [the ball] in the air,” she said.

Ruffien also had to rapidly forge relationships with girls who grew up alongside one another in France’s tight-knit youth academy system.

“You had to prove yourself,” Ruffien said. “I need to play way quicker, and I need to be smarter with where I am on the field, tactical-wise.“

Though she struggled at the start, Ruffien could feel her teammates’ respect grow throughout the tournament, cemented when she came off the bench in the 82nd minute of Les Bleus’ semifinal against the Netherlands and scored the goal that made it 1-1.

France lost in a penalty shootout but qualified for this fall’s U-17 World Cup. Ruffien walked away with some “best friends, for life,” she said.

Before the tournament, Ruffien was unsure whether she wanted to make the leap overseas to Paris FC, but afterward, Sandra recalls Ruffien letting her know, “Mom, I made my decision.”

“I really loved growing up here. I love Minnesota,” Ruffien said. “But sometimes, when you don’t see your family as much, and you know, all your friends go to see their grandparents, and you can’t — that one’s hard."

Ruffien won’t be quite so far away this fall. She’s eager to reconnect with French culture and spend free weekends taking the train to visit her grandparents.

Most days, Ruffien will wake up in housing provided by Paris FC, complete online coursework to earn her high school diploma, then train in a gym and on a field with other academy players who double as her new roommates. If all goes well, quality performances will keep earning her spots at national team camps and even the U-17 Women’s World Cup, hosted by Morocco in October and November.

To Sandra, understandably, the distance will be bittersweet, but “I’m very proud. I’m not sure I know one [other] person who would have taken such a decision.”

She wasn’t the only one feeling bittersweet. Ruffien said it was hard to turn down graduating from Edina after one last ride with her close-knit Hornets teammates. Helping her undefeated team win the 2023 Class 3A state title was what she described as “just the best year ever,” and even losing in a championship rematch to Wayzata last November left Ruffien wanting revenge.

”Obviously I wanted to win again with this high school team. I love high school season,“ Ruffien said. ”But I think it’s a good opportunity for me to grow there, just learn tactically as a player, as a person, before going to college," where Ruffien hopes to study business management.

Aafedt, who spent 11 seasons as her alma mater’s head coach, said that those sorts of conversations with players are never easy but that the current Edina coaching staff told Ruffien, “Lou, this is something you should do. … When the national team calls, you should answer.”

Ruffien’s bags are packed, heading out mid-July. She’s answering the call.