At just 21 years of age, for both Utah Royals FC and for Real Salt Lake, U.S. Soccer wunderkind Ally Sentnor and Diego Luna have emerged as global icons of the Utah Soccer’s organization’s trust and belief in youth and development, mixing patience and progress with providing its sporting individuals with the necessary platform for success, placing them in the best positions to do so.
Youth, courage, success.
The aforementioned pair stand as the most contemporary noteworthy embodiments of the ideology, but further examples remain, including both current and departed RSL players such as Emeka Eneli, Andrés Gómez, Gavin Beavers, Fidel Barajas, Zavier Gozo, KK Ream, and so many more. More than a mere mission statement - “Winning Together Through Development” - it encapsulates a way of life, an expression of the collective RSL x URFC vision and mission of player growth and development, reflecting the organization’s overarching philosophy of promoting excellence all over the pitch.
A groundbreaking 2024 saw both Sentnor’s U.S. Soccer Young Female Player of the Year honor coupled with Luna’s MLS Young Player of the Year triumph, the first-ever occasion a soccer organization has seen players from sibling teams emerge as winners of both awards in the same year, further testament to the players themselves, as well as the body of work being completed in Salt Lake, Sandy, Herriman and all points in between.
What is the RSL x URFC way? It’s simple, really. The organization defines its sporting mission as “leading and inspiring the soccer culture in Utah.”
How is this achieved? One may ask – through the promotion of excellence and the best in class on the pitch, with Sentnor and Luna serve as the latest models for emulation. The hopes, goals and expectations for the organization now is that it continues long beyond this idyllic pair.
Last Friday, January 17, at the first U.S. Women’s National Team training camp of the year, Utah Royals forward Ally Sentnor was honored, amidst teammates and USWNT icons, with the U.S. Soccer Young Female Player of the Year award, in a lowkey celebratory team meeting, recognizing her exemplary leadership and performances for both Club and Country all across 2024.
The honor represents a seminal moment in the young career of the former U.S. U-20 Captain, a culmination of her stunning maiden professional campaign and a Royals FC debut season in a year which saw her rise from captaining her nation - which finished third place overall in the summer’s U-20 Women’s World Cup - to making her senior national team debut at legendary Wembley Stadium, all in the space of five months. Standing shoulder-to-shoulder with former recipients of the award: Tierna Davidson, Jaedyn Shaw, and Ashley Sanchez, the North Carolina Tar Heels alumna beamed with pride – joy and excitement etched all over her facial expression, the full gravity of the achievement gradually settling upon her countenance.
Sentnor, 21, is a mighty talent, and the latest embodiment of URFC’s mission of promoting youth and excellence on the football pitch.
“Ally is an example of what we want to be both as a club and as an environment,” Utah Royals Head Coach Jimmy Coenraets enthused about his star attacker. “She is persistent, knows what she wants, and has very clear ambitions, but, above all, she also has the attitude and work ethic required daily to achieve those goals and that is the most important thing, especially for a young player.”
“Her winning this prize is an important moment for the club, and the organization as a whole, and that is what we want as affirmation of our philosophy – educating and developing players in the best possible environment and helping them to be successful.”
Words of endorsement don’t sing greater than that. Complimentary, compelling, and true to every grain. For Sentnor, 2024 was a model breakout year in every sense of the phrase. The 20-year-old was selected by the Royals as the first overall pick in the 2024 NWSL Draft as part of the inaugural squad which heralded the Return of Royalty to the NWSL. An impressive top-flight debut campaign duly produced a return of three goals and four assists in 21 domestic games, finishing as the team’s second top goalscorer, as Utah recovered from a difficult start to make a late push for the playoff places.
Sentnor often stood out in the face of adversity during a trying first half of the season following the team’s return to the Wasatch Front, then fully settling into her stride upon the arrival of Coenraets at the end of June. Buoyed by the tactical platform and liberty provided to her by her head coach, the forward thrived and, near the end of the summer, carried her brilliant form to her youth national side where she captained the United States to a third-place finish at the U-20 Women’s World Cup, finishing with three goals and winning the Bronze Ball in the process as one of the tournament’s best three players. A remarkable first professional season was further accentuated when she was named as a final nominee for the coveted NWSL Rookie of the Year award and, for her efforts and displays throughout the year of the “Return of Royalty,” she was named the team’s Offensive Player of the Year at the club’s end-of-season award ceremony.
“Ally has been putting in a lot of work in different ways. She's been showing up in all of our training sessions, with the national team, and also at the U-20 World Cup. She has proved herself and her talents in a very positive way this past year and that is the example of how we want and try to push our individuals to be,” Coenraets continued. “That is what we want to do. We have a building here full of people and specialists [to support the players] and we want to create an environment and structure for young individuals who come here to be successful.”
The URFC boss’s comments highlighted his player’s talent and dedication, but crucially also spoke to the vision and objectives of the club and, even more tellingly, the organization as a whole towards promoting individual and player excellence through growth and development, platforming talent and creating a conducive environment that allows individuals to thrive and succeed.
It rings accurate for the network as a whole, and whilst Sentnor continues to be a revelation for URFC, adding to her burgeoning reputation, in synergy with its sibling club and representative of the entire Salt Lake organization, so too does Real Salt Lake playmaker Diego Luna.
In truth, there probably isn’t much left to say about Luna and his achievements over the past 12 months that haven’t already been said. Indeed, the 21-year-old continues to rewrite the narrative and raise the bar on what defines success for a young player in Major League Soccer. The Wasatch Front has scarcely beheld an RSL player of Luna’s ilk in near an age. Such has been his level of impact throughout his time at the Claret-and-Cobalt.
Just as 2024 was Sentnor’s revelatory year, the previous term also found itself to be Luna’s breakthrough campaign in every sense of the word, much akin to his URFC counterpart, and few, if any, can contend with that. RSL’s diminutive creator-in-chief enjoyed a stellar competitive individual campaign, establishing himself as a regular fixture in head coach Pablo Mastroeni’s starting team sheet for the entirety of the season.
In November, the burgeoning USMNT international was selected as the latest recipient of the MLS Young Player of the Year award, becoming only the second RSL player ever to receive the honor, and the first in its current iteration, on the back of a record-breaking personal and collective season on the Wasatch Front, in conclusion of a historic campaign.
“I think all awards are just a barometer of where you’re at in your career. Diego has worked extremely hard to understand himself, the game, and what he needs to do to continue to grow as a professional, and so I believe he’s wholly deserving of the award,” RSL boss Mastroeni explained.
“He’s earned that award through a lot of reflection, hard work, and grit. He’s been learning from a lot of the other experienced people here on how to conduct himself to be the best player he can be and I’ve seen him mature from the way he comes in every day. And I think when you have a growth mindset like Diego does – he’s constantly striving to be the person that he envisions himself to be in the future and I think that’s all you can ask of a young player.”
A product of the San Jose Earthquakes and Barcelona Residency Academies, Luna arrived at America First Field from USL side El Paso Locomotive in the middle of the 2022 MLS season, with much excitement and expectation, for a USL record transfer deal. His was a story of patience, perseverance, and hard work, but the talent was always there and visible for all to see, and at RSL, he found the perfect platform and support upon which to display the full scale of his abilities to the rest of the watching world.
His first two seasons, in 2022 and 2023, would yield an encouraging return of five goals and three assists in 36 domestic appearances as he continued to adapt to the rigors and demands of top-flight football, but his third would bear witness to his ascent as one of the continent’s most sought-after talents.
In a groundbreaking 2024 campaign, Luna hit a total of eight goals, and a team-leading 12 assists, across 31 domestic games and 26 starts, providing the second-most goal contributions for the club (20) throughout the MLS regular season. His exploits during the term also made him only the second player in league history to record at least 20 goal contributions in a single season before turning 21, as well as the first player since 2022 aged 20 or younger to produce at least 10 assists in a single campaign.
In January 2024, He received his first call-up to the U.S. senior men’s national team, earning his maiden start and appearance for his country in a narrow 1-0 loss to Slovenia and, in July, was selected as the youngest member of the MLS All-Star team alongside defender Justen Glad, representing RSL’s first All-Star selections in three years.
In January 2025, Luna was called up to his country again, this time to new head coach Mauricio Pochettino’s USMNT camp for the first time, alongside RSL 2024 Player of the Year Emeka Eneli, making his second national appearance in a 3-1 win against Venezuela, and picking up his first assist - the game-winner, no doubt - and a second start in Wednesday’s victory against Costa Rica.
Luna's growth and progress stand as a further embodiment of the RSL model of leading and inspiring the football culture in the state of Utah, particularly through platforming youth and development, and providing an educative environment conducive enough to afford young talents the time and opportunity to mature and grow, himself having enjoyed a patient, measured rise to stardom.
“We pride ourselves on playing, developing, and helping younger players and when you have kids in the academy looking up to the first team and seeing evidence that they’ll get a chance, that if they work hard and try to impose themselves every day, they’ll get an opportunity, that’s always a good thing,” Mastroeni concluded.
“So I think it’s [MLS Young Player of the Year accolade] a wonderful award, not just for Diego, but also for the club as a whole, as to who our identity is, and I think it provides a vision of what is capable from the youngsters into the academies, and the monarchs into the first team – that there’s always a pathway for every young player at this club.”
