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For Bay Area sports fans eager to get to know the Golden State Valkyries, here’s an early piece of intel on Belgian guard Julie Vanloo, straight from the player herself:
“If I have a goal, nobody’s going to stop me,” Vanloo said at the team’s recent media day.
Vanloo delivered this message with dead-in-the-eye clarity, in perfect English. She had just told a story about how, during her younger years, she did not care much for school, only wanting to play basketball.
“But I knew,” Vanloo said, “languages were the most important thing, because that would take me to the next level in basketball. I was very, very motivated to learn languages.”
Sometimes, it was a struggle for Vanloo, toggling between her native Flemish and French and English, but preparation has met opportunity with the globally-minded Valkyries, the Bay Area’s WNBA expansion team that plays its first game Friday night at Chase Center against the Los Angeles Sparks.
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Of the team’s 12 players, seven are international talents, and none arrive with more fanfare than France’s Carla Leite, a 21-year-old point guard who recently won the EuroCup Women Finals MVP after leading Villeneuve d’Ascq LM to the 2025 crown.
The signings of Leite, the budding star, and Vanloo, the determined veteran, show the full spectrum of the Valkyries’ interest in international players, which is unmatched in the WNBA. Vanloo, 32, made her league debut last season with the Washington Mystics after 15 years playing all over the world. Valkyries general manager Ohemaa Nyanin and head coach Natalie Nakase saw enough in Vanloo’s game — she averaged 7.4 points and 4.3 assists — to pluck her away in the expansion draft.
Considering Nyanin and Nakase’s backgrounds, their emphasis on building a globally diverse roster shouldn’t come as a surprise.
Born in Maryland to parents from Ghana, Nyanin grew up in five different countries: Philippines, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Chile, and the U.S. She played college basketball for American University in Washington, D.C., and graduated with a degree in international relations. Nyanin has served as the Official FIBA Representative at FIBA Basketball World Cup Qualifier Games across the globe, among other international roles.
Nakase, a Southern California native and the first Asian-American head coach in the WNBA, played professionally in Germany and began her coaching career there and in Japan before returning to the U.S. and working her way up the ranks.
Nakase said that the Valkyries’ strategy of compiling international talent was “more a philosophy that I wanted to do. And then, because of the expansion draft, I got to handpick. Then it just kind of melted into that.”
A melting pot, so to speak.
The relationship between Vanloo and Leite encapsulates it.
“Julie speaks everyone’s language,” Nakase said. “That’s been really key. Because, again, imagine going to another country and you have no idea. It’s been nice to have Julie because she’s just listening. She’s doing extra for a teammate.”
About the only thing lacking in Leite’s repertoire is her mastery of English, but Vanloo is here to help. After a reporter asked Leite at Valkyries media day, she and Vanloo whispered back and forth to one another for about 30 seconds before Vanloo jumped in and served as her translator.
“She says that even when she’s young, she can show her maturity … In stressful situations, she had to stay calm,” Vanloo said for Leite. “This was a new situation to her. I think she obviously did that very well.”
After the Dallas Wings drafted Leite No. 9 overall in the 2024 draft, she elected to continue playing in Europe last season. The Wings left her unprotected in the expansion draft and the Valkyries pounced.
The expansion experience — bringing together a dozen players who have mostly not played together and combining them with a coaching staff that has mostly not coached those players — was always going to be a lesson in quick and efficient communication.
Throwing three foreign languages into the mix — yes, Vanloo even speaks some Italian for forward Cecilia Zandalasini — was a choice that added a degree of difficulty for this inaugural season.
“This is the first time where I played with so many internationals, which has been an honor,” said forward Kayla Thornton, a nine-year WNBA vet. “Pretty cool, because the way they play over there, they bring that here.”
Said guard Veronica Burton, “It’s dope just to hear the different languages. Even during lifts, during timeouts, you see the different connections and you see how each person communicates with one another differently. And I say the rest of us are pretty boring just because we only know English.”
Vanloo had the vision to see that her language abilities could help her achieve her basketball dreams just as much as a dependable jumper. She may not have known it as an 8-year-old singing songs in English and French. But by the time she was a teenager and required to study languages six to nine hours per week, she had a full understanding of what she was gaining.
“Languages are important,” she said. “It’s an advantage. I think you’re rich when you know multiple languages because it’s just easy to communicate and to create a bond with people.”
If the Valkyries buck the odds and inspire with their play this season, it seems pretty clear that Vanloo will be the glue.
“My goal was to play professionally and to come to the league one day,” she said. “I wanted this. I’m telling you, when I want something, I’m going to do it until I can’t.”