For any U.S. women’s national team head coach, the calculus at any major tournament is clear: win or bust.
This summer that will be especially true of Vlatko Andonovski, who will lead the USWNT into the World Cup nearly four years after taking over from two-time champion Jill Ellis, and two years after a disappointing major tournament debut at the Olympics.
To put it simply: Andonovski is on the hot seat, and only a third straight World Cup win for the USWNT will do.
It all started well enough for Andonovski, who took over in the afterglow of the team’s 2019 World Cup triumph in France. The USWNT breezed to 16 straight wins to start Andonovski’s tenure, and won 22 of his first 23 games overall.
That start led up to the Olympics in 2021, where the USWNT was heavily favored to banish the demons of 2016 and recapture the gold. But things went south quickly in Japan.
It started with a 3-0 defeat to Sweden in which the USWNT was dominated in shockingly comprehensive fashion. The U.S. would recover to reach the semifinal, but fell to Canada for the first time in 20 years, ultimately bouncing back to win bronze.
“He took us to the Olympics and we fell short,” Lindsey Horan told USA Today’s Sports Seriously. “It’s not how we wanted to perform. The bronze medal was incredible, but we always shoot for gold.”
Despite taking home a medal, the team’s display in Japan was a low point in Andonovski’s tenure. The U.S. had not been shut out since 2017 heading into the Olympics, and was blanked three times in Japan. It was reactive, unsteady, and looked shockingly vulnerable.
Andonovski was criticized for relying too heavily on the USWNT’s old guard while young stars were omitted from the roster or, in the case of Catarina Macario, given seven minutes of total playing time.
There was a sense that a generational overhaul was needed and in the period following the Olympics, it appeared that was happening.
After omitting the likes of Megan Rapinoe and Alex Morgan from his 2022 SheBelieves Cup squad, Andonovski sounded like a man ready to fully turn the page.
“There’s a reason why Mia Hamm is not in camp still,” he said when asked about the veteran omissions. “We’re not calling Mia Hamm or Julie Foudy in camp right? So the same goes here.”
The message was hardly subtle, but what has emerged since then has been entirely more nuanced than the simple cull that appeared to be going on at the time.
Fourteen of the 23 players on Andonovski’s World Cup roster are first-timers, but a number of veterans — including, of course, Rapinoe and Morgan — were also in the squad. The average age of the roster is 28.5, putting it right in line with the World Cup-winning teams of 2015 and 2019.
Horan said that the period following the Olympics was a learning process for both coach and players. Even with some big-name veterans still around, a combination of injuries and retirements have led to plenty of roster turnover.
“It’s big learning lessons for us and for him, and how to manage his team,” Horan said. “I think the biggest thing that he’s done is brought in these new players, and had to make some tough decisions. Bringing in this roster and how we’re moving forward, and how we’re going to play and especially with the injuries that he’s had to deal with, it’s changed a lot leading to the World Cup.”
Part of those lessons came during a three-game losing streak last fall — the team’s first since 1993. It’s the kind of run that may only be properly contextualized after the World Cup. Was it part of a necessary phase of growth, or will it be just another black mark on Andonovski’s USWNT resume?
For the coach himself, the opportunity ahead is clear. Being at the wheel of a juggernaut like the USWNT — even one at slightly less that 100 percent — is something that only those in the most rarefied air of the game will ever experience.
“If you’re a soccer player you dream to play in the World Cup, if you’re a coach you dream to coach in it, so it’s a dream come true for me personally,” Andonovski said after the World Cup roster was released. “Obviously myself, together with the staff will do anything possible to help this team make history.”
Now, Andonovski and the USWNT need to deliver.
“Would I be happy with anything short of a third straight win? No, absolutely not,” he said last month. “There’s only one thing in mind. Our goal is to win the World Cup. There’s no question about it.”
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