After a long, tumultuous spell, the Washington Spirit are going back to a familiar face.
The Spirit on Monday named Mark Parsons as their new head coach, bringing the 36-year-old Englishman back to a club he managed from July 2013 through the end of the 2015 season.
“This is a club with an incredible vision to be the best in the world, and I’m joining special people to try and make that happen,” said Parsons in a video the Spirit posted on social media announcing the move.
For the Spirit, Parsons will bring both a certain cache as well as some much-needed stability. Washington’s recent head coach history has been all over the place: Richie Burke was hired in January 2019 with no experience in the women’s game and with seemingly no competition for the job (then-owner Steve Baldwin had already made his choice before formally buying a majority share of the team). He was moved into a front office role during the 2021 season only to be suspended within days after a blockbuster Washington Post report detailed allegations of abusive conduct against him.
The Spirit named assistant coach Kris Ward as their interim boss, and went on to win a championship after going on an incredible late-season run. Ward was understandably given the job on a permanent basis after that, but 2022 didn’t go according to plan, with a talent-laden team beset by injuries, a difficult schedule, and defensive mistakes contributing to a 15-game winless streak.
Ward was eventually dismissed after an unspecified training ground incident, which was followed by him giving an account of that incident to The Athletic that players vehemently disputed. Angela Salem, in her first year as an assistant coach, was the club’s head coach for an August game against the Houston Dash before the team brought Albertín Montoya in as an interim head coach for the rest of the 2022 season.
Parsons, meanwhile, left the Spirit after taking them to the playoffs in 2014 and 2015, having been hired away by the Portland Thorns (the spark of a rivalry of sorts between the teams, at least on an organizational level). With the Thorns, Parsons won two NWSL Shields (2016, 2021), an NWSL title in 2017, and an NWSL Challenge Cup in 2021. He was also named the league’s Coach of the Year in 2016. Portland made the playoffs in five of Parsons’ six seasons in charge (there were no playoffs in 2020), and hosted at least one playoff game as the higher seed in all but one of those trips to the postseason.
Parsons left the Thorns after the 2021 season to take over as the head coach for the Netherlands women’s national team. Following the program’s triumphant Euro 2017 and a run to the 2019 World Cup final, expectations were sky high. While Parsons only lost three games during his 11-month spell in charge of the Dutch, a quarterfinal exit at Euro 2022 — amid reports that Dutch players had not taken to Parsons’ approach — was considered a disappointment, and he and the KNVB mutually parted ways in August of this year.
The task in place for Parsons and the Spirit is clear: both parties are hugely ambitious, and Parsons has seen what it’s like to have operated within NWSL constrictions and create a club that could take down even deep-pocketed European giants. Washington, especially under owner Michele Kang, has talked about being the best club on the planet.
The task ahead of Parsons will be significant. While the Spirit do still have arguably the greatest concentration of top-level talent in the NWSL, 2022 revealed issues with depth and in-game consistency. The club has seen at least eight players, including U.S. women’s national team stalwart Kelley O’Hara, depart within recent days, while veterans Amber Brooks, Tori Huster, and Nicole Barnhart are all eligible for free agency.
Owing to the colossal struggle over ownership that lasted well into 2022, the Spirit are also on some levels rebuilding their entire club structure. Team president Mark Krikorian has been busy, while some hires within the organization that came under Baldwin have moved on this autumn. Meanwhile, the club has added Dawn Scott, who was widely lauded for her work with the USWNT and England, as the club’s new Director of Performance.
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