Last week was full of both goodbyes and hellos for the U.S. women’s national team. The team feted World Cup winners Julie Ertz and Megan Rapinoe in their respective farewell games and welcomed M.A. Vignola and Mia Fishel in their first appearances for the senior team. But overall, this September camp has resembled a holding pattern while U.S. Soccer determines who will guide the team moving forward long-term after head coach Vlatko Andonovski departed the team in August.
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USWNT captain Lindsey Horan noted after the first friendly against South Africa on Thursday that it was “really tough” to navigate the current state of the team.
“I think (interim head coach) Twila (Kilgore) is doing a really good job because it’s a tough role for her as well. You want to go out, still teach stuff with the team learning, still move forward, and push this program in the right way. And we have the Olympics in one year’s time. So we don’t want to lose time.”
Ahead of the second match this window, U.S. Soccer sporting director Matt Crocker, alongside president Cindy Parlow Cone and CEO JT Batson, provided a high-level update on that coaching search.
“I am really happy with where we are with the search,” Crocker said. “We have an unbelievably diverse pool of exciting candidates. We are on track to be in a position to have the head coach in place ready to support the team from early December.”
Crocker said that diversity included ethnicity, gender, experience and “the whole package.” He also expressed excitement about the names in the pool — he wouldn’t specify the exact number, but the list remains in the double digits. To him, it was an indication of the international profile of the USWNT manager role.
“My job has been, from the start, to go and find us the best candidate in the world,” Crocker said. He also said there was no real thought of potentially putting in a short-term caretaker manager through the 2024 Olympics in an attempt to speed up the tournament preparation or potentially wait for some bigger names to free up from their existing contracts. “I’m excited by the quality and caliber of candidates that we’ve attracted already,” he said.
The hiring process in progress is a lengthy one, but the target date remains sometime ahead of that final FIFA window of the calendar year, which runs from November 27 to December 6. No matches have been announced for this window by U.S. Soccer yet.
As Crocker has said before, the hiring process so far has been data-driven. It started by running a data pass that provided hundreds of names for USSF to consider before the federation moved on to a technical assessment to narrow the pool. Currently, they are assessing potential candidates’ human skills. From this double-digit pool, they’ll settle on a shortlist. Crocker didn’t give a target number for this beyond single-digits but greater than three candidates. That shortlist will go through the wringer in November, with a lengthy technical and tactical assessment in person along with an extensive interview to assess the cultural fit. From there, Crocker will make his selection before presenting it to Cone, Batson and the U.S. Soccer board for approval.
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The head coaching search is only one of the larger projects that Crocker must manage at the same time. He is also working on developing the identity and culture of the team, as well as the program as a whole. The federation has goals to build a playing style that can be used at all ages and stages of the program, across both the men’s and women’s game. And all of this has to happen without letting go of the ultimate goal: winning at the highest stages while developing world-class players.
According to Crocker, the actual structure of the program isn’t settled yet either. Former USWNT general manager Kate Markgraf departed the federation after having overseen the women’s youth and senior national teams, but it appears clear that type of role will not exist under Crocker.
“One of the big priorities for me is to make sure the senior men’s coach and the senior women’s coach report to the sporting director, and I was pretty, pretty insistent on that,” he said. “I’ll be the one that will be recruiting those coaches, I’ll be the one making sure they’ve got robust development plans, sitting with them and outlining the strategy. So it’s my job to hold those guys accountable for what has been agreed to.”
There are elements of that GM role that will still need to be taken care of by someone who is not a head coach, such as the development of the pathway and aligning the youth national teams to the senior ones, or smaller details such as compliance with the collective bargaining agreements now in place. However, U.S. Soccer has a department focused on its relationship with leagues and clubs, which might help ease some of the sticking points.
“I don’t want the head coach to be bogged down with constant day-to-day operational administrative stuff,” Crocker said. Once the head coach is hired, they can determine the “final piece in the jigsaw” of the personnel and infrastructure around the national team.
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Crocker has also directly solicited feedback from the players during the search for a coach, having spoken with about half of the team and looking to speak with more. He received feedback both on the team’s play on the field, as well as the soft skills the players want out of a head coach.
“There was definitely a sense that we need to be better with the ball and have more solutions,” he said. Much of the focus from the tactical feedback focused on building the attack, playing through the midfield and having “creative solutions in tight spaces, having the players and the tactics to beat the low block.”
Crocker stressed multiple times that the feedback was not a slight to Andonovski, but the players expressed a desire for a coach that can build and maintain “outstanding relationships that build trust quickly, that can talk with gravitas and confidence around the direction of the program, that can be brave enough to make bold enough changes that are needed.”
The players were clear: they want to evolve. Crocker’s challenge is finding a head coach who can manage it while being under a microscope with the highest expectations of winning.
(Photo: Brad Smith/Getty Images)
