Sabina Peterson Rajalingam brought a deep love for ‘football,’ and big-time talent, to Blake soccer

Sabina Peterson Rajalingam still calls it football.

She’s been adaptable in other ways. She’s had to be. Before the start of her junior year, her family uprooted from its London home and moved to Minneapolis. But “football” stuck.

And while her Blake School soccer teammates give her some flak for what she calls the game she loves, they also know she’s pretty good at it. Now a senior, Peterson Rajalingam is one of three captains for this Bears squad ranked No. 2 in 2A, undefeated at 14-0-1.

In London, the sport “was pretty much my whole life,” Peterson Rajalingam said. “The culture, there’s so much football there.” Playing every weekend, watching Premier League games, attending Women’s Super League matches — all of it.

Peterson Rajalingam’s father, Babu, is from Sri Lanka, and he grew up a fan of English soccer clubs, hoping to one day live in the country whose supporters claim a trophy “comes home” when the national team wins a soccer tournament. After attending university in the United States, he and wife Danielle moved to London, where Sabina and her older sister were born and raised.

Coached by their parents, the sisters grew up playing grassroots soccer until they joined club academies as young teenagers. Peterson Rajalingam last played in the youth system for Premier League side Watford FC, though she’s partial to cheering for English club Arsenal.

On the Bears’ Senior Night against St. Paul Academy, while her teammates’ posters tied to the stadium fence displayed old photos of them in local Minnesota youth club jerseys, Peterson Rajalingam’s showed her competing against West Ham United.

“Every weekend, it was our thing that we did together,” Babu said.

So when Babu and Danielle told Peterson Rajalingam they were relocating to Minnesota, closer to where her sister played at Carleton College and where her mom’s family lived, she was unsure what her life — and football — would look like.

“I think I’m a pretty flexible person, so it took me a few months to be like, ‘Okay, we’re actually moving,’” she said. “But once we came here, I was going in with the mindset, ‘This is going to be your life now. Just try and make the best of it.’”

Blake’s admissions office connected Peterson Rajalingam with the Bears’ head coach, Jocelyn Keller, as she applied to the private college preparatory school. As a former Division III coach at Carleton College, Keller had watched plenty of players’ film when recruiting. When she saw Peterson Rajalingam’s film, “I thought she was lights out,” Keller said.

“In my eyes, having worked with college freshmen and being in that world, her transition was pretty seamless,” Keller said. The new Blake junior was quick to ask questions and offer to make tactical shifts for Keller.

Her Elite Clubs National League team training at Minnesota Thunder Academy emphasizes direct, physical and scoring-focused play, vs. the more tactical, possession-focused buildup taught in England. A defensive midfielder, Peterson Rajalingam can calm the game down, patiently looking for passes to her teammates to open up the attack.

Her smooth transition, in part, was thanks to players already on the Bears roster. Before Peterson Rajalingam moved to the U.S., Keller passed along the phone number of fellow senior Sofia Wyatt.

Wyatt is a twice-voted captain for the Bears and a longtime club player at Edina SC. On Senior Night, her poster included a photo from when she and her younger sister were students at Blake’s Lower School and participated in a “Future Bears Night,” walking the varsity players out onto the field. It also included notes from her teammates thanking her for her inclusive leadership.

She’s been “this unspoken heart of the team” during her four years on varsity, Keller said.

“She’s my best friend on the team, and in my life right now,” Peterson Rajalingam said. “We carpool together. She lives really close to me. [She’s always] there for me and hearing me talk about London and things that I miss, but also helping me.”

The pair share a love for English club Arsenal and share playing time in the Bears’ midfield. During Senior Night, Wyatt cut down the left wing and served a pass in to Peterson Rajalingam, who fired a shot across the goal and into the back of the net. They both shrugged and pointed to their temples to mimic a goal celebration by Arsenal winger Bukayo Saka, a player they both love.

That’s not an uncommon feat. This season, Peterson Rajalingam has tallied 11 goals, while Wyatt has five goals and seven assists. With a mix of senior leadership and young talent, the Bears have won all their matches besides a 1-1 draw at Simley early in the season.

“Getting so close last year made us hungrier to get there this year,” Wyatt said, referencing the Bears’ 2-1 loss to Benilde-St. Margaret’s in the Class 2A, Section 5 championship last year. “Ever since when I was a freshman, they’re like, ‘Let’s make it back to [U.S.] Bank.’ That wasn’t really a possibility, and now it is … and that really motivates the team.”

After graduating, Peterson Rajalingam plans to play at Pomona College, a Division III school in Claremont, California, that reached the Final Four in 2019. But before that: Get her driver’s license, and indulge in school spirit at football games (American football games) that was “kind of a culture shock.”

She hasn’t yet been back to London since moving. She misses its diversity, its public transit, its food. Her first stop would be to get something to eat at the historical Portobello Market. And when her time playing in college is up, “I’ve definitely thought about [going back], maybe after college, and hopefully keep playing,” Peterson Rajalingam said.

And while her time at Blake has been briefer than Wyatt’s, a deep run at state would carry a different, but still significant, meaning.

“I think it would mean a lot, symbolizing my change and journey,” she said. “From London to here, and how quickly you can adapt to a different life and have success in that — and enjoy yourself, too.”