Julia Dohle, who started three games in goal for the USA at the 2020 Concacaf Under-20 Women's Championship, has retired from soccer due to a rare heart condition that required surgery.
She made the announcement on Instagram on Sunday.
“The last couple of months have been the hardest of my life and I still cannot fully wrap my head around it all,”
Dohle
wrote. “I was recently diagnosed with a very serious and rare heart condition and have to medically
retire from the game of soccer because of it. Never did I ever think that I would be saying those words, especially because I felt that I had so much more to give... Even though I am filled with
sadness, pain and confusion about it all, I am also grateful and very lucky to still be here today.”
Dohle started three of seven games for the USA at the regional U-20
championship, including the 4-1 win over Mexico in the final after the USA had already clinched a berth in the world championship. The other U-20 keeper was North Carolina's
Claudia Dickey. The
other keepers on the USA's provisional Concacaf roster were
Meagan McClelland (Rutgers) and
Katie Meyer (Stanford).
The U-20 World Cup finals, scheduled to be played this
summer in Costa Rica and Panama, were postponed and will instead be played Jan. 20-Feb. 6.
Dohle, a former Development Academy Best XI conference pick with NYCFC, was a redshirt last
season at Penn State. The Nittany Lions are not playing this fall.