March 13, 2024, 11:37 a.m. ET
Vlatko Andonovsky appears like he has returned residence, not solely in an apparent geographical sense, but additionally in a non secular sense of belonging. Saturday’s NWSL season opener towards the Portland Thorns might be Andonovski’s first sport as head coach of the Kansas City Currents. Andonovski made a reputation for himself earlier than turning into the coach of the U.S. Women’s National Team, his hometown workforce in Kansas City.
Andonovski has been in his component for the reason that NWSL preseason started six weeks in the past, teaching gamers every single day and watching follow footage late into the evening. His membership sport fits him higher than the worldwide surroundings through which he has been energetic for the previous 4 years.
“It’s steady, that is the distinction,” Andonovski informed ESPN. “It’s not like, ‘Oh, let’s take two months off. See you in May.’ “Okay, I’ll examine this field, however I have to examine the following field. ” ”
Andonovski is aware of the elephant within the room: Saturday’s sport would be the USWNT’s worst consequence on the World Cup since shedding to Sweden on penalties since that disastrous August 2023 evening in Melbourne, Australia. , it is going to be his first time teaching one other workforce. Round 16.
– Live on ESPN+: KC Current vs. Portland Thorns (Saturday, 1 p.m. ET)
Immediately after the USWNT was eradicated from the World Cup, a disenchanted coach Andonovski appeared earlier than a big group of worldwide media who questioned the coach’s acumen in dealing with the historic loss. A couple of days later, Andonovsky resigned from his place with the USWNT and withdrew from soccer altogether.
“After the World Cup. I simply wished to relaxation,” Andonovski mentioned. “I wished to know the place I stood. I wished to know what was proper for me and what was fallacious for me. I wished to judge every little thing. To be sincere, I simply wished to step away from the sport. I did it before everything as a result of I noticed how a lot I like this sport and that I could not reside with out it. ”
He had different job affords, from head teaching jobs within the USL to assistant teaching roles in MLS and different NWSLs, however he mentioned all of them led him again to Kansas City. Andonovsky is Kansas City to the core, from avidly watching Chiefs soccer video games to badmouthing well-known barbecue joint Joe’s as a consolation meal. He got here to this metropolis in his 2000 as knowledgeable indoor athlete from North Macedonia (a part of the previous Yugoslavia) and has lived there together with his household ever since.
When coach Vlatko Andonovski leads the Kansas City Current in Saturday’s NWSL season opener towards the Portland Thorns, it is going to be his first sport as coach for the reason that USWNT was eradicated from the Women’s World Cup final summer time. .Brad Smith/ISI Photography/Getty Images
In late August, Andonovski was at Jaw’s when a fan chased him within the car parking zone after one in every of his shut mates took him out of his hideout to dinner. The fan didn’t blame Andonovski for what occurred on the World Cup, however hugged him and expressed pleasure on the coach’s return to Kansas City.
“They appear to be pleased with what I’ve accomplished for this metropolis and my successes, and so they’re not simply rooting for me, they’re defending me,” Andonovski mentioned of the native followers. he mentioned.
In a cellphone name with Kansas City’s present co-owners Angie and Chris Long, it rapidly grew to become clear that Andonovski’s imaginative and prescient can also be the place it finest aligns with the longer term supervisor’s imaginative and prescient. Their imaginative and prescient is formidable, to construct the perfect membership on this planet, and so they perceive that it is about extra than simply constructing a roster.
The Longs offered many of the non-public financing for the $117 million building of CPKC Stadium, the primary stadium constructed for an NWSL workforce, which opens Saturday. They additionally spent about $18 million on the workforce’s coaching amenities and workplaces. The Longs, whose co-owners are Brittany and Patrick Mahomes (the latter a three-time Super Bowl successful quarterback for the Chiefs, whom Andonovski admires), have spent unprecedented quantities of cash on NWSL amenities.
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CPKC Stadium could also be a world other than the NWSL that Andonovski left behind when he took over the USWNT in 2019.
Andonovski was FC Kansas City’s first coach and led the workforce to 2 NWSL championships earlier than disbanding on the finish of 2017. FC Kansas City hosted the first-ever NWSL sport and in addition acquired excessive reward for his or her 2013 sport towards the Thorns. School soccer stadium. The workforce performed its last season on the primary discipline of the youth soccer advanced. It was a stadium that – by definition – didn’t meet the minimal requirements of NWSL or US Soccer. Some followers watched from short-term bleachers behind the ropes simply past the sideline.
On Saturday, the gamers will emerge from a locker room constructed for them and stroll via a tunnel adorned with {custom} Kansas City Current wallpaper. This time, the followers inside attain might be those that have paid for entry to unique membership lounges.
“When you are in Kansas City and also you’re taking part in towards Los Angeles, New York, Chicago and Houston, you at all times get seems like, ‘Oh, Kansas City, come on,'” Andonovski mentioned, giving a unfavorable sign. Said. “We have at all times been followers; now we have at all times been followers. [second-rate], now we’re trendsetters. Everyone else will comply with us and it is a proud second for town. It is a proud second for everybody who lives right here that we’re setting the usual. ”
Can Andonovski win within the new NWSL?
Such assets include strain. The Longs employed Andonovski in hopes of bringing the title again to Kansas City like they did a decade in the past. However, the NWSL has modified rather a lot over the previous few years.
First, Andonovsky gained the title in 2014 and 2015 regardless of a extreme lack of assets. When he left the NWSL in 2019 after two seasons on the helm of Seattle Reign FC, he was below a wage cap of $421,500 and had a minimal annual wage of simply $16,538. This 12 months’s NWSL wage cap is $2.75 million. Multiple NWSL groups paid greater than $700,000 in switch charges throughout the record-breaking winter switch window, along with presently paying participant salaries totaling seven figures. The workforce is best from high to backside and options extra expertise and variety than ever earlier than, with the newly accredited enlargement to seven worldwide slots for every workforce.
“First and foremost, the sport itself has developed,” Andonovsky mentioned. “The league has developed. Players, every little thing has modified. We get that. We know that what we did in ’13, ’14, ’15 does not work now. What labored then, now… I do know, I’ve to do one thing totally different, one thing higher.”
Andonovski coached his first NWSL sport in 2013 when the now-defunct FC Kansas City hosted the Portland Thorns. Now, he is again in Kansas City, teaching the Currents, who’re opening a custom-built $117 million stadium for Saturday’s sport towards the Thorns. Denny Medley/USA TODAY Sports
Despite reaching the finals final season, Kansas City completed second from backside in 2023. Former coach Matt Potter was mysteriously sacked throughout the first few video games of the season with little clarification, and Current spent the rest of 2023 below interim administration. Signed within the 2022-23 offseason, Debinha was one of many few gamers final 12 months whose early season accidents hampered his efforts to construct a successful basis.
Andonovski has been watching Current’s tumultuous season from afar as they ready for the World Cup, believing they’ve a core of gamers who carried out effectively final 12 months and might be dependable once more in 2023. There is. Current has strengthened its lineup this offseason. There are additionally new worldwide gamers comparable to Brazilian ahead Bea Zanerat and younger gamers comparable to 18-year-old Claire Hatton, who Andonovski already sees because the workforce’s beginning No.6.
There are parallels between Kansas City’s wealthy assets and the work of the U.S. Women’s National Team. Unlike her first stint in Kansas City, Andonovski now has maybe the perfect amenities within the league along with a roster full of worldwide expertise. But nothing can replicate the surroundings of the U.S. nationwide workforce, Andonovski mentioned, echoing the sentiment of gamers over time. His teaching naturally developed from there, he mentioned.
“As I’ve mentioned many instances earlier than, now we have no alternative however to develop,” Andonovski mentioned. “You work with the perfect individuals, so you haven’t any alternative however to be the perfect every single day. You should look outward: the way you method issues, how you’re employed, the way you do issues on and off the sphere.” ”
Andonovsky grew up, however by no means appeared again. He speaks passionately about U.S. Soccer Federation officers and former nationwide workforce gamers, a few of whom he nonetheless retains in contact with, however who say he will not watch U.S. nationwide workforce video games or You might not be capable of watch it. He seems up the outcomes and lineups after video games and hears about what occurred, however sitting and watching a U.S. girls’s nationwide workforce sport just isn’t on his to-do listing.
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Saturday, March 16 (all instances Eastern Time)
• Wolverhampton v Coventry (8am)
• Swansea City vs. Cardiff City (8am)
• Union Berlin vs. Werder Bremen (10am)
• Osasuna vs. Real Madrid (11am)
• Getafe vs. Girona (1 p.m.)
• Manchester City v Newcastle (1pm)
• KC Current vs. Portland Thorns (1 p.m.)
• Miami FC vs. Sac Republic (7 p.m.)
• Las Vegas Lights vs. FC Tulsa (8 p.m.)
Sunday, March 17 (all instances Eastern Time)
• Chelsea vs. Leicester City (8.30am)
• Freiburg vs. Bayer Leverkusen (11am)
• Man United v Liverpool (11am)
• Leeds United v Millwall (11am)
• Borussia Dortmund vs. Eintracht (12pm)
• PSV Eindhoven vs. FC Twente (3pm)
• Atletico Madrid vs Barcelona (4pm)
Andonovski is understood for preferring to remain offline and never learn media reporting on himself or his workforce, however he broke that custom in August to replicate on the World Cup following the USWNT’s departure. I considered it for a second. As it turned out, he by no means did.
“To be sincere, I do not suppose I might wish to try this,” he mentioned. “I do know that once you begin studying books, you begin fascinated about performances and issues like that. Listen, I do know. I coached, however I did not win the World Cup. I failed.”
Much of the worldwide media protection, which Andonovsky had not learn, solid doubt on his ways and management talents. The public pays little consideration to the success of the NWSL that gave Andonovski the U.S. job within the first place, as a substitute seeing solely the inflexible ways that made the U.S. gamers seem like empty shells in 4 World Cup video games. Ta. US gamers and coaches had been unable to adapt to their opponent’s sport plan.
Now, Andonovsky faces one other problem: adapting. He might be again in his consolation zone as a membership coach, the place he’ll be capable of develop groups over days, weeks and months, and in addition develop younger gamers for years to come back. He’s on the coaching discipline every single day, fairly than touring across the nation each weekend scouting gamers from the stands as he did together with his nationwide workforce.
There’s an unstated problem that he has one thing to show as soon as once more – that he is greater than a failed World Cup supervisor, or that he is a self-proclaimed “anybody” who constructed the most effective NWSL groups. It’s even a feel-good story of ‘no’ within the historical past of 10 years in the past. Known for his strong protection, there are looming questions on whether or not his ways will stay recent and efficient.
Andonovsky doesn’t settle for such concepts. He’s in Kansas City as a result of he deserves to be, and he is able to win once more, he mentioned.
“I haven’t got to show something to anybody however me,” he mentioned. “I can do that. I wish to do effectively for sure individuals and teams, however I’ve nothing to show. I used to be within the league.” [and I was] It was fairly profitable. I bought the nationwide workforce job as a result of I did effectively, not as a result of I did poorly. I got here right here once more as a result of somebody believes I can do effectively. There’s nothing to show. I wish to do every little thing I can to reside as much as the belief individuals have positioned in me. ”