Tag: Mark Parsons

Who’s next? The top candidates to take over as USWNT head coach

The USWNT job will be a hot topic in the months to come

A cruel summer has left the U.S. women’s national team boarding early flights home, and that means change is on the way.

Head coach Vlatko Andonovski spent most of the last two years under increasing pressure thanks to inconsistent performance levels and some iffy results, and the USWNT will in all likelihood be looking for a new coach in the near future.

U.S. Soccer has made no such pronouncement just yet, and Andonovski declined to delve into his future immediately following the his side’s World Cup exit to Sweden, citing a desire to not hijack a moment for his own needs. That’s a prudent choice from a coach who no matter his stumbles, has placed the team’s needs before his own. It might not stoke the news cycle, but holding off on that discussion is the upstanding thing to do.

However, Andonovski’s tenure has included a series of underwhelming performances at the Olympics that ended with bronze instead of gold, and a three-game losing streak that tied the longest such run in USWNT history. That made this summer make-or-break for Andonovski.

As a prominent philosopher once said, you’re only funky as your last cut, and the earliest World Cup exit in this team’s history means that change is a must. There are issues beyond Andonovski’s control, including a long list of injured stars, but the USWNT job is a “no excuses, just win” role. It’s a safe bet that U.S. Soccer will soon be thanking Andonovski for his services and wishing him well in his future endeavors.

In other words, the discussion is already here. U.S. Soccer is surely going to be working on a preliminary list of USWNT coaching candidates before winnowing it down to a shorter list for first interviews, and so on. Within a few months, they should be introducing a new boss.

Here are some of the coaches out there that have the kind of resume the federation will be interested in.

NWSL Weekend Take-Off: Thorns imperious, VAR off to a rocky start

Tactics, VAR controversy, and spicy quotes? NWSL’s not wasting any time

The NWSL is back for 2023, and immediately produced a characteristic mix of quality play (we see you, Portland Thorns), strangeness, and controversy.

Pro Soccer Wire will be bringing this look at one aspect from every game to you every Tuesday throughout the season. Great goals? Tactical nuance? Spicy quotes? It might be week one for NWSL teams, but there’s so much to tackle. We saw the return of some banter between old rivals, several glorious goals, a total change in system from one team, and VAR’s debut resulting in a pivotal call.

Without further adieu, let’s dive into the takes:

Chloe Ricketts signs with Washington Spirit, becomes youngest-ever NWSL player

NWSL’s new Under-18 Entry Mechanism is already being used

The times are definitely changing in the NWSL, and few things make that more clear than the burgeoning youth movement around the league.

The latest move on that front has seen the Washington Spirit signing 15-year-old forward Chloe Ricketts to a three-year contract (the deal includes an option year in 2026). Per the Spirit, Ricketts signed her contract on Thursday aged 15 years and 283 days, making her three days younger than Portland Thorns midfielder Olivia Moultrie was when she signed her first professional contract in 2021.

“We remain very focused on building a roster that can help us succeed now while also investing in the future,” said head coach Mark Parsons in a team release announcing the move. “Chloe has shown great quality with and without the ball and has an incredible intensity in everything she does. The vision and infrastructure of our club make this signing possible, and we are look forward to Chloe developing and becoming an important player and teammate for our team.”

“The opportunity to join the Washington Spirit on a professional contract is a dream come true,” added Ricketts. “I’m looking forward to continuing my development as a player and individual with the great resources here in the District.”

Ricketts, who hails from Michigan, played for AFC Ann Arbor in the USL W-League in 2022, scoring two goals and adding two assists as one of the two 14-year-olds in the entire pre-professional league. In 2021, she played on an Ann Arbor Tigers boys team that won the Michigan State Cup and on a girls team that went to the ECNL national final.

The Spirit’s initial preseason roster included Ricketts and another teenager, U.S. Under-17 midfielder Melina Rebimbas, as the club has made youth development a clear priority. In 2022, Washington brought USYNT attacker Jaedyn Shaw in during their preseason, keeping the then-17-year-old around to train with the team while hoping for a path to sign her.

NWSL, with no mechanism in place to allow for a youth player to sign without waiting for the next college draft, ruled that Shaw had to go through the league’s discovery process. The San Diego Wave were atop the priority list for that mechanism, and despite overtures from the Spirit — sources told Pro Soccer Wire that Washington offered $250,000 in allocation money, or $150,000 and a first-round draft pick — they opted to offer Shaw a deal.

That proved to be a smart choice, as Shaw scored on her professional debut and has already emerged as a consistent starter for a playoff-caliber team.

NWSL Under-18 Entry Mechanism in action

Ricketts’ signing is far less of an ordeal than previous teenagers have experienced when trying to join a team in the league. Portland tried to move mountains to sign Mallory Swanson in 2016, only for NWSL to leave no avenue to do so. Swanson ended up signing with the league in 2017, ending up with the Spirit via a convoluted distribution ranking order process.

Moultrie, meanwhile, ended up taking the league to court after her attempts to sign with Portland were initially rebuffed by NWSL rules. Even after the league relented, it still required a discovery process akin to the one Shaw went through in 2022, with OL Reign claiming her league rights. The Reign then traded those rights to the Thorns for a third-round pick so Moultrie could play where she’d wanted to all along.

Commissioner Jessica Berman was asked about these stumbling blocks at a press conference before the league’s 2022 championship game, and said that sorting out its policy for players in Ricketts’ situation was a priority.

“Virtually every policy and rule, at the league office, is being reviewed,” said Berman. “We are taking a closer look at everything and figuring out what are the most important things we need to address, and [youth player entry] is definitely one of the areas that we’re focused on, to try to make sure we balance all different interests — and there’s a lot of competing interests — and get the most right for the future of the league.”

Ricketts is the first player to put those changes into practice. NWSL announced a new Under-18 Entry Mechanism in November 2022, detailing what standards had to be met for a team and player to qualify.

Among the requirements are provisions that require teams to offer a guaranteed contract once they place a player on their Under-18 Entry List, and must have the consent of both the player and their parent or legal guardian to do so. Players entering the league this way can’t be waived or traded until after turning 18 unless the player and their guardian have given consent, and are ineligible to be selected in any expansion draft while under 18 years old.

Teams are limited to two players per season between both their Under-18 Entry List and players signed via that mechanism. So for the Spirit, signing Ricketts and having Rebimbas on their list means they are currently maxed out within the parameters of the new process for the 2023 season. Under-18 Entry Mechanism spots cannot be traded, so a team can’t hoard them as with other tradable assets.

Washington’s press release noted that Ricketts “will continue her education virtually throughout the season,” though there are no publicly-stated requirements on that front from the league.

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Washington Spirit name Mark Parsons head coach

Parsons returns to where his head coaching journey started

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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Mark Parsons, Dutch women’s national team agree to part ways

Euro 2022 didn’t go to plan for the Dutch or Parsons

Mark Parsons is no longer in charge of the Netherlands women’s national team.

The former Portland Thorns head coach and the KNVB jointly announced the news Wednesday, with the federation saying they had “jointly decided to end the collaboration.”

Parsons tweeted a personal statement as the news broke, thanking the players and staff for the welcome they gave him.

“I want you to know that I always worked with one goal in mind and that is to help this team move forward. I truly wish to have achieved better results with you,” wrote Parsons. “This has been a very challenging 12 months but I remain honored I have had the chance to work with these players and KNVB.”

 

“In the run-up to and at the European Championship, both the performances and the results were disappointing and we cannot afford that. The bar is high,” read a statement from the KNVB announcing the move. “The Netherlands was defending champion and also a finalist at the last World Cup, we want to participate for the prizes. With a view to the current World Cup qualifying series, it has been decided that someone else will be at the helm in the very short term.”

Parsons took the job following the Tokyo Olympics, with a brief overlap between coaching Portland and the Netherlands lasting until last November. During his tenure, the Dutch went 10W-5D-3L, only losing to longtime power France (twice) and eventual Euro 2022 winners England.

However, with expectations soaring after the Netherlands made the 2019 World Cup final, the nature of some of those results raised eyebrows. The loss to England was a 5-1 rout, while the Dutch needed late goals to secure home and away draws against the Czech Republic in World Cup qualifying.

That process was supposed to be straightforward, but those dropped points mean that in order to qualify directly, the Netherlands face a potential must-win match against Iceland in their group finale on September 6.

At Euro 2022, the Netherlands went out in the quarterfinals following a 1-0 extra time loss to France, but in truth the French dominated the game. Parsons drew some criticism from fans after opting to drop normal starter Jill Roord, who only entered as a halftime substitute on the day.

The Dutch finished second in the group stage on goal difference to Sweden after being forced to scrap their way to a 3-2 win over an underdog Portugal side, and relying on three goals in the final six minutes to beat Switzerland 4-1.

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