MELBOURNE, Australia — Vlatko Andonovski wasn’t eager about his job as he navigated the messy feelings of World Cup heartbreak. However he virtually actually misplaced it right here on the Melbourne Rectangular Stadium on Sunday, when the .
After a 2021 Olympic bronze, he entered the 2023 World Cup needing to satisfy sky-high expectations to stay USWNT head coach. He fell wanting them in each potential means. The is the worst World Cup lead to program historical past. Andonovski is the primary coach to steer the workforce into a number of main tournaments and win none of them.
So he has possible coached his final USWNT sport. He declined to talk about his future at an emotional post-match information convention. However his contract expires on the finish of the calendar yr, a U.S. Soccer Federation spokesman confirmed to Yahoo Sports activities. He’ll virtually absolutely both step down or be fired earlier than then.
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The extra related questions are: Who else will go? And who will exchange Andonovski?
These choices are within the palms of U.S. Soccer sporting director Matt Crocker, the spokesman mentioned. USWNT common supervisor Kate Markgraf will participate in a post-World Cup evaluate course of, however her future additionally may very well be up within the air.
. Her efficiency, due to this fact, may be very tough to evaluate from afar. Crocker will do this from inside, and resolve whether or not to retain Markgraf or exchange her — or redesign the USWNT’s sporting construction.
His most essential job, although, shall be to steer the teaching search. And if his is any indication, it will likely be a radical one. After in June, Crocker and the federation about “multifaceted analysis mechanisms” and “cutting-edge hiring strategies” inside a “rigorous course of.”
There have been , cross-industry instruments used to evaluate every little thing from persona to intelligence. There have been “summary reasoning checks,” Crocker mentioned, and ones that evaluated “logical pondering.” There have been “checks the place candidates had the chance to organize for sure parts round technique,” Crocker added, and “sure checks the place they only actually needed to ship beneath strain at a second in time.”
All of it , and it was “grueling,” Berhalter mentioned.
Presumably, the USWNT course of shall be comparable.
There may be some urgency — as a result of the Paris Olympics are lower than 12 months away — however discovering the fitting particular person for the job is paramount. Crocker will possible tab an interim coach — maybe a youth nationwide workforce coach, or a present USWNT assistant — to take cost of the workforce in September, for 2 friendlies towards South Africa (Sept. 21 and 24). The brand new coach might start in October or November.
The tough half shall be figuring out that proper particular person. As a result of there is no such thing as a apparent successor.
There may be one lady head-and-shoulders above her worldwide teaching friends, Sarina Wiegman. However she’s possible unavailable, as a result of she’s presently in a equally enticing job, . (The English FA reportedly wished to increase that contract; however final summer season, Wiegman denied a report that she’d signed an extension by 2027.)
Past Wiegman, the sector of candidates is messy. There may be Laura Harvey, who presently helms the Nationwide Ladies’s Soccer League’s OL Reign, and who has U.S. nationwide workforce expertise — with the Below-20s and Below-23s, and as a brief Andonovski assistant with the senior workforce in 2020 and 2021. Harvey was additionally a USWNT candidate again in 2019, after Jill Ellis retired, however Andonovski acquired the job forward of her.
Elsewhere within the NWSL, there’s San Diego Wave coach Casey Stoney, a former England nationwide workforce captain and former Manchester United supervisor.
Within the English Ladies’s Tremendous League, there are Chelsea’s Emma Hayes and Arsenal’s Jonas Eidvall, each extremely revered and profitable.
On the worldwide scene, there’s Jamaica’s Lorne Donaldson — whose full-time job is at a youth membership in Colorado that produced USWNT stars Mal Swanson and Sophia Smith. There may be South Africa’s Desiree Ellis. There are a number of others at this 2023 World Cup who’re worthy of consideration.
Within the American faculty ranks, UCLA’s Margueritte Aozasa is a rising star within the occupation. She led the Bruins to a nationwide title in her very first season after a number of years (and two nationwide championships) as an assistant at Stanford. She ought to get a name from Crocker, however possible isn’t fairly skilled sufficient to get the USWNT job — but.
Then there’s Tiffany Roberts Sahaydak, a former USWNT participant with 112 caps to her title who has had success over the previous 10 years as the pinnacle coach on the College of Central Florida. She has additionally been a part-time USWNT assistant coach beneath Andonovski since January 2022. (It’s unclear if associations with the present U.S. workers can be seen as a optimistic or detrimental.)
There are additionally countless potentialities outdoors the field, together with in males’s soccer. How about Jesse Marsch? Heck, how about Pep Guardiola?
Each can be lengthy photographs for a wide range of causes, after all. However the level is that the search’s scope ought to be broad, and cash shouldn’t be an element. There have been supposedly no monetary limitations on the USMNT course of; so there shouldn’t be limitaxtions right here. Berhalter’s final USMNT contract paid him a base wage of over $1.3 million; Andonovski’s contract paid him round $400,000 yearly. U.S. Soccer is probably going ready to go properly past Andonovski’s present quantity to lure the candidate of its alternative.
And in contrast to the USMNT, the USWNT job is among the most engaging in girls’s soccer.
So Crocker ought to have his choose. Maybe Wiegman is off the desk, however his job ought to be to rent, at worst, the second-best coach within the sport.
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