Rubasha eyes Amavubi call up

After an impressive debut in Rwanda U-23’s 2-0 win over Somalia last Saturday, teenager Yves Rubasha is keen on earning a call-up to the senior team, the Amavubi Stars.

Rubasha, who turned 19 on Sunday, features for the youth academy at Portland Timbers, a franchise side in the Major League Soccer, USA’s topflight football league.

“My next target is to play for the senior national team," Rubasha told supersport.com, adding, "That would really be a dream come true. Obviously, there are some things I need to work on especially physically as well as technically.”

Rwanda head coach Johnny McKinstry praised the teenager’s attitude. “He did reasonably well. We weren’t really intending to throw him in straight away, having travelled such a long distance and ultimately a very young man, only 18.”

“Playing your first international match after such a long journey is not easy. International football is more intense than club football and it is definitely more intense than academy football he has been playing recently, so all in all I think he did quite well.

"This is the first time he has been back to Rwanda since he was three so it is all a new experience.”

The full back, who was born to a Rwandan father Aloys Rubasha and Kenyan mother Rouz Rubasha in Nairobi in 1996, was raised in Australia where he played for several county academies.

He played for San Souci for the U-6s through to the U-10s before joining St George for the U-11s and U-12s representing his county and his talent earned him an opportunity to train at the David Beckham academy in London in 2009.

Rubasha played for the Bankstown U-18s in 2013 before travelling to the USA in March 2014 to do trials with the Portland Timbers U-18s but was later called up to join the San Jose Earthquakes, another MLS side. After six months, he signed for the Portland Timbers where he is right now.