Vlatko Andonovski is back in Kansas City with the NWSL. And he returns to the league a better coach thanks to his experience with the U.S. women’s national team.
The Kansas City Current introduced Andonovski, 47, on Monday as their next head coach. He previously coached in the NWSL from 2013 to 2019, including five seasons with FC Kansas City from 2013 until 2017. He won two NWSL championships with the former Kansas City club, and he has maintained a home in Kansas City ever since.
In 2019, Andonovski was tasked with managing the USWNT, but his tenure with the national team came to an end in August following a disappointing result at the World Cup.
“Coaching the national team was a great opportunity individually for me,” he said Monday. “Selfishly, it was a great growth opportunity for me. When you’re surrounded with the staff that I was around, with some of the best players in the world, you have no choice but to better yourself on a daily basis and to get better in every opportunity that is given to you.
“And there’s no one or two things that I can point out, but the whole opportunity, the whole four-year tenure that I had was an opportunity for me to get better. I certainly believe that I got better and there will be moments in my new job, in my new position that I will use [that experience] and hopefully even do better than before.”
Losing in the Round of 16 at the World Cup was “tough” emotionally and that he “went through a tough time,” he said. While he initially considered taking a more extended break from coaching, the people of Kansas City and the vision of the club made him decide to return to the NWSL.
“One thing that hit me was actually how much this city, the people in the city, the friends and my neighbors were behind me and supportive of me,” he said. “And when I started the talks with [Current owners Angie and Chris Long], I was very happy about the vision and the goals, but I was also happy that all those opportunities were in front of me in the city that gave me comfort in my hardest times. And I’m very thankful for it. And I’m looking forward to repaying them.”
Still, the NWSL has changed since Andonovski last led a team. For one, the league is expanding, with four more teams set to join in the next three years.
There also is increasing investment in the league, with more fans than ever before and teams valued higher than ever before. And Kansas City is set to open the first-ever soccer stadium designed specifically for a women’s team, which is scheduled to open by the start of the 2024 season.
Andonovski understands that the league has changed “tremendously” in the time since he left, he said. But coaching the USWNT helped him stay connected with players. And he’s ready to be part of the league’s evolution.
“We have no choice as coaches, as a team to keep on evolving because the game itself evolves,” he said, noting that it’s changing “a lot more” and more quickly than ever before.
“In the past, it used to be World Cup to World Cup,” he continued. “Now the game moves so fast that it evolves on a yearly basis, and we have to keep up. And it’s not that we just have to keep up, we want to be ahead of it. We want to be ahead of everyone, we want to be trendsetters. We want to be able to create or build something that people will follow.”
Alex Morgan wants to show her friend Taylor Swift how much fun “real football” can be during the NWSL playoffs.
After leading the San Diego Wave to the NWSL Shield and the No. 1 seed in the postseason, Morgan issued the invitation to the 12-time Grammy-winning superstar.
“There is an open invitation, always,” she said. “American football games are fun, but real football is more fun I think.”
The NWSL endorsed Morgan’s message, posting the quote on social media with the caption: “What would happen if you just called Taylor up?” In a video with the U.S. women’s national team in April, the 34-year-old forward revealed Swift as the most famous contact in her phone.
What would happen if you just called Taylor up ☎️ pic.twitter.com/R0uEAY0oLE
— National Women’s Soccer League (@NWSL) October 16, 2023
Swift is a well-established friend of Morgan and fan of the USWNT. She hosted the 2015 World Cup-winning team on stage at her 1989 World Tour, and she announced Morgan’s place on the 2023 World Cup roster.
“I mean, she’s honestly one of the best humans that I’ve ever come across,” Morgan told Entertainment Tonight in July. “She is so supportive. She’s all about women empowerment. We both share our favorite number, number 13, born the same year, in 1989. We’ve just been really supportive of each other’s careers.”
Swift’s recent connection to the Kansas City Chiefs also could pull her into NWSL circles. She has been spending time with Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, and she has been spotted at his games alongside Kansas City Current co-owner Brittany Mahomes. Mahomes already brought her husband, Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, into the fold.
The Current pointed out the connection on social media, writing in response to the NWSL’s post: “Taylor Swift knows KC is the move.”
.@taylorswift13 knows KC is the move 😉 https://t.co/aYVYMTLRZ3
— KC Current (@thekccurrent) October 17, 2023
The 2023 Golden Boot race is nearing the finish line, with Portland Thorns forward Sophia Smith holding a one-goal lead over her nearest competitor.
Still, North Carolina Courage forward Kerolin (10 goals) would need a brace to overtake Smith (11 goals), as the reigning league MVP holds the tiebreaker. The final day of the 2023 regular season will decide the playoff and Golden Boot races.
Ahead of decision day, Just Women’s Sports takes a look back at the history of NWSL Golden Boot winners.
2022: Alex Morgan, San Diego Wave, 15 goals
In San Diego’s inaugural season in the NWSL, Morgan put on a show, tallying 15 goals in 17 games. A career-best for the star forward, the total included three braces, plus four goals in one game to tie an NWSL record.
2021: Ashley Hatch, Washington Spirit, 10 goals
Hatch earned the 2021 Golden Boot with just 10 goals in 20 games, the lowest total needed to earn the award in league history. Her 10 goals were a career best, which Hatch has nearly matched with nine goals in 2023.
2019: Sam Kerr, Chicago Red Stars, 18 goals
In 2019, Kerr broke her own single-season goal scoring record with 18 goals, a mark that still stands. She also won her third consecutive scoring title; no other player has won more than once. Kerr still stands alone atop the NWSL with 77 career goals, despite departing for the Women’s Super League after the 2019 season.
2018: Sam Kerr, Chicago Red Stars, 16 goals
Kerr also won the scoring title in 2018, along the way becoming the first player to reach 50 goals in NWSL history. She finished the season with 59.
2017: Sam Kerr, Sky Blue FC, 17 goals
For Kerr’s first of three scoring titles, the Australian phenom set a single-season record that she broke herself two years later. Kerr scored 17 goals in 22 games, none of them on penalty kicks. She also became the first player in NWSL history to reach 50 career points.
2016: Lynn Williams, Western New York Flash, 11 goals
Lynn Williams capped her second NWSL season with the Golden Boot. For the first time in league history, two players atop the goals leaderboard, as Williams and Kealia Ohai Watt both finished with 11. But Williams held the tiebreaker, with five assists to Watt’s four.
2015: Crystal Dunn, Washington Spirit, 15 goals
Dunn had a standout 2015 season, scoring 15 goals to take home the Golden Boot. At 23 years old, she also became the youngest player in league history to take home the league MVP award, a milestone eclipsed by Smith in 2022.
2014: Kim Little, Seattle Reign FC, 16 goals
With 16 goals in 23 games, Little went on scoring tear. From May through June, Little scored a goal in six consecutive games. She had a goal against each NWSL team that season, including five against the Dash.
2013: Lauren Holiday, FC Kansas City, 12 goals
The future Hall of Famer won the inaugural NWSL scoring title with 12 goals for FC Kansas City. She also ranked fourth in shots and shots on goal, registering a goal or an assist in 10 consecutive games. Holiday also was named league MVP in 2013.
Sam Mewis and Lynn Williams expressed their confusion over the NWSL’s reported decision to cancel its Challenge Cup tournament on the latest episode of their “Snacks” podcast.
The Challenge Cup started in 2020 as a replacement for the regular season during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. It continued in 2021 and 2022 as a preseason tournament, then in 2023 it ran concurrently with the regular season. But the NWSL plans to abandon the tournament, The Equalizer reported in August.
While NWSL commissioner Jessica Berman denied that any final decision had been made ahead of the 2023 Challenge Cup final, the future of the tournament remains a question mark. According to The Equalizer’s report, the league plans to host a match between the NWSL Shield and the NWSL Championship winners instead.
Yet for Mewis, the Challenge Cup finally had found its rhythm in 2023, with matches taking place midweek and during the month-long World Cup break. Mewis is a midfielder for the U.S. women’s national team and the Kansas City Current, but she has been sidelined with a knee injury for the last two seasons.
“I think players were really on board with the Challenge Cup this year, not only because of the prize money, but also because that concentration of games came during the World Cup when there were a lot of players missing from the league,” Mewis said. “So I feel like it kind of lent itself perfectly to the season’s ebbs and flows. And next year would have been another great opportunity to do that during the Olympics. So I am curious about why it’s leaving, just as I think people were really starting to come around to it.”
Challenge Cup partner UKG committed record prize money this year: $1 million total. Williams also pointed out the sudden rise of the tournament, which would make its absence all the more obvious.
“It just felt like it went so high so quickly, and then all of a sudden, it’s over,” she said. “Because even this year, there was so much talk around it because the prize money was a million dollars.”
While there were still challenges with the tournament, which had to work around regular season games in the first three months of the season, it helped players stay sharp during the long World Cup break, Williams pointed out.
“I think it also allowed players that wouldn’t necessarily get time in the regular season to show what they could do in this Challenge Cup,” she said. “And I think that on some teams, those players are now starting even though the World Cup players are back. So, I would also love to know the reasoning behind that. Is something else going to replace it or, like, what’s the deal there?”
The North Carolina Courage successfully defended their 2022 Challenge Cup title Saturday, taking home the 2023 crown with a 2-0 win over Racing Louisville. With the victory, the club has seven NWSL titles in seven years – two Challenge Cups, three Shields, and two league championships.
After knocking on the door throughout the Challenge Cup, Kerolin got the Courage on the board early and they never looked back. Manaka Matuskubo got the team’s second in the 54th minute, making the 19-year-old the youngest player to score in any NWSL title game and earning her MVP honors.
“It’s a world-class finish,” Courage coach Sean Nahas said of Matuskubo’s strike. “I don’t think anyone else would have thought about hitting that first time out of the air. I think it shows the level of IQ she has. … I’m thrilled for her.
“She was shocked that she won the MVP. But for a 19-year-old to come into this environment and have an impact I think says a lot about her.”
In addition to Matuskubo, who deserves to be among the Best XI for the Challenge Cup semifinals and championship match? Just Women’s Sports makes our picks from the North Carolina Courage, Racing Louisville, OL Reign and Kansas City Current.
2023 NWSL Challenge Cup: Best XI
GK – Casey Murphy (North Carolina)
While the goal scorers were key for the Courage, the USWNT goalkeeper recorded two clean sheets in the semifinals and the final, saving three shots total, to help ensure consecutive Challenge Cup titles for her team.
D – Ryan Williams (North Carolina)
Williams played a key role on the Courage back line, which allowed just three shots on target throughout the Challenge Cup semifinal and final. In the championship match, she won three of her tackles and recorded two interceptions.
D – Malia Berkely (North Carolina)
Against Kansas City in Wednesday’s 1-0 semifinal win, Berkely recorded three tackles and one interception, while recording a game-high 97.7% completion rate on her passes, finishing on 86 of 88 attempts. Against Louisville, she also recorded a shot on target.
D – Phoebe McClernon (OL Reign)
McClernon was all over the field defensively for OL Reign in their semifinal loss to Racing Louisville, recording a game-high six tackles and three interceptions. She also held a 72.4% completion rate on 58 attempted passes, and her 42 completions were second only to teammate Sofia Huerta.
M – Brianna Pinto (North Carolina)
Pinto scored the game-winner in North Carolina’s semifinal matchup against Kansas City in stoppage time to send the team to the Challenge Cup final. While she had just 11 touches, she made the most of them, completing five of six total passes.
M – Denise O’Sullivan (North Carolina)
The foundation of North Carolina’s defensive midfield, O’Sullivan winning a game-high seven tackles in the championship match. Against Kansas City in the semifinal, she had an astounding 90.8% completion rate on her passes, and she had two tackles and one block while also recording a shot.
M – Savannah DeMelo (Louisville)
Before leaving for the World Cup with the USWNT, DeMelo was one of Louisville’s best Challenge Cup players. And she picked up where she left off upon her return. Against OL Reign, she had three shots – including one on target – while also recording two tackles and two blocks. Her 0.3 xG was the best for Louisville in that game.
M – Mana Matsukubo (North Carolina)
North Carolina’s 19-year-old midfielder made history in the NWSL Challenge Cup final, earning her a spot on the tournament’s Best XI. She had two shots – both of which were on target – in the final, converting on the one.
F – Kerolin (North Carolina)
The Brazilian star placed among the league’s top shot-takers throughout the Challenge Cup but had not converted until Saturday, when she scored the game-winner against Louisville. She finished the match with five shots, three of them on target. She also played well in the semifinal, recording two shots, one tackle and a team-high four blocks.
F – Michelle Cooper (Kansas City)
The 20-year-old rookie out of Duke had a great semifinal game for the Current, recording a team-high two shots and three tackles. Her 0.6 xG led the Current, and she also had a 72.2% completion rate on her passes.
F – Kirsten Davis (Louisville)
Davis helped Racing Louisville to their first-ever NWSL championship game with a goal against OL Reign in the semifinal. She also had a tackle and a block in that game while completing 78.6% of her passes.
Sam Mewis offered an inside look into her recovery process six months after her second surgery for a lingering knee issue.
The U.S. women’s national team and Kansas City Current midfielder has been sidelined since August 2021 with the injury, but she shared an update Tuesday on Instagram.
“6 months today!” Mewis wrote alongside a video showcasing her rehabilitation work and weight-lifting exercises. Most notable is the lower body work Mewis showed off in the video, which included deadlifts and lunges and points to Mewis regaining range of motion and strength in her right knee.
The 30-year-old starred at the 2021 Olympics for the USWNT, but then she underwent arthroscopic surgery after the tournament. At the time, she was expected to miss six to eight weeks.
Mewis played two NWSL Challenge Cup games for the Current in March 2022 but has not taken the pitch since then due to what the club has described as a “progressive injury to her right leg.”
In January, USWNT head coach Vlatko Andonovski said he didn’t know what Mewis’ timeline would be. She had her second surgery in the same month. “At this point, I don’t want to guess what the time is or if she is going to be back at all,” he said.
Recently, she spoke with GOAL about the recovery process, noting that she wants to get back to playing soccer if she can. But right now, she’s taking rehab “one day at a time.”
“Obviously, I haven’t played in a while,” she said. “I’m just doing my rehab and taking it one day at a time, but I think my message is just in moments like that, in moments of difficulty, just try to find that new purpose, if you can, and apply yourself to that.”
Alyssa Thompson’s face contorted in disgust during Angel City FC’s 0-0 draw Sunday with the Houston Dash. The culprit? HotShot, the spicy cramp prevention concoction wreaking havoc on NWSL taste buds.
The 18-year-old rookie was stretching out her right leg with help from an Angel City trainer late in the match. The trainer handed her a HotShot, which Thompson drank and then immediately regretted.
Billed as “muscle cramp supplement,” HotShot’s ingredients includes sugar and lime juice concentrate but also ginger extract, pepper abstract, sea salt and cassia oil. How does it work? The spicy shot of liquid stimulates the nerves in the athlete’s mouth, which then tricks the nerves in the rest of the body (including those causing the cramps) into stopping their signals.
Kansas City Current rookie Michelle Cooper, who tweeted the video of Thompson’s reaction, received her own unpleasant introduction to HotShot in her team’s 2-1 win Saturday against the Orlando Pride.
“I was just texting Alyssa before the game telling her how shocking that HotShot was. NOW SHE KNOWS!!” Cooper tweeted Sunday.
Thompson confirmed the text exchange between the rookies, though it did not prepare her.
“I texted her and I was like, ‘Oh, I’ve never had one of those, thank god. I won’t have one,’” Thompson told Equalizer’s Taylor Vincent after the match. “And then I just cramped up and my trainer was like, ‘You want it?’ And I was like, ‘No.’ And (then they told me), ‘You need to have it.’ So then I had it and it was really gross and I did not like it at all.”
I don’t know if you guys have ever had one of those….but NEVER again. https://t.co/kadCwPfYtY
— michelle cooper (@michelle1cooper) June 25, 2023
Cooper agreed with Thompson’s assessment, tweeting of her own HotShot: “I don’t know if you guys have ever had one of those….but NEVER again.”
HotShot is taking names out here. #NWSL pic.twitter.com/U9jPmthChf
— michelle cooper (@michelle1cooper) June 26, 2023
Michelle Cooper made history Sunday, scoring the fastest goal in NWSL history.
The goal also represented a personal milestone for the Kansas City Current rookie as her first regular season NWSL goal.
The former Duke star, who was selected with the No. 2 overall pick in the 2023 draft, scored just 22 seconds into Sunday’s match. She beat out Rocky Rodriguez’s record of 24.76 seconds set back in 2017. While Cooper had scored her first professional goal in a Challenge Cup match in May, she had not scored during the regular season.
RECORD BREAKER!!!
— National Women’s Soccer League (@NWSL) June 18, 2023
Michelle Cooper scores the fastest goal in NWSL history, just 23 seconds after the opening whistle. 🤯 pic.twitter.com/iEVZWosZdG
The early goal also marks the first time that a rookie has scored in the opening minute of a match across all NWSL competitions.
Still, the history-making goal was not enough, as Kansas City squandered a two-goal lead in a 3-2 loss to the Washington Spirit.
“At the end of the day it comes down to the little moments, and we slipped up in those moments,” Cooper said. “We know we must go into the next game better.”
The Kansas City Current fired head coach Matt Potter just three matches into the season due to “issues around his leadership and employment responsibilities,” the team announced Wednesday.
In his first season as head coach in 2022, Potter led the Current to the NWSL championship match. But after a winless start to the 2023 season, Potter has been relieved of his duties.
The Current did not provide any details related to the leadership issues cited in Wednesday’s announcement.
“We watch the play on the pitch, we keep a pulse on the locker room, and we are constantly evaluating ways to improve our club,” general manager Camille Ashton said in the news release. “Through our ongoing process of continuous improvement, we believe now is the right time for this change.”
Potter brought previous experience at the college level (as the head coach at Washington State and Oklahoma) and at the U.S. national level (as the U-23 coach) with him to Kansas City when he was hired in January 2022.
Kansas City finished with a 10-6-6 record in the 2022 regular season. After entering the playoffs as the No. 5 seed, the team made a run to the NWSL final against the Portland Thorns.
In the offseason, the Current signed top free agent Debinha along with other standout NWSL veterans, but they have not clicked on the pitch. They also have generated some controversy off it, as third-round draft pick Mykiaa Minniss claims to have received “less than professional” treatment from the club before she was cut from the preseason roster.
Caroline Sjöblom, who served as an assistant coach under Potter, will take over as interim head coach effective immediately. She will lead the Current into Wednesday night’s Challenge Cup opener, a road contest against the Houston Dash.
KC Current has parted ways with Head Coach Matt Potter. Assistant Coach Caroline Sjöblom will serve as Interim Head Coach, effective immediately.
— KC Current (@thekccurrent) April 19, 2023
Kansas City Current draft pick Mykiaa Minniss received “less than professional” treatment from the club, her mother said in a social media post Friday.
According to Nicole Minniss, Mykiaa’s experiences after the January draft have “ruined her daughter’s love of the game.”
A defender selected in the third round out of Washington State, Minniss had to pay for her own flight in order to report for preseason and also provided her own meals during the first week, her mother said in the post.
“Mykiaa was given little to no information until a few days before arriving in Kansas City about her upcoming schedule,” Nicole Minniss wrote, noting that Mykiaa had to lean on the support of nearby family members to arrange transportation from the airport to her hotel and to settle into the city.
“She hesitantly reported to KC against her agent’s and her intuition that something wasn’t quite right,” she continued. “When it was time to go to training, oversized items were thrown at her, and Current labels ironed on before her eyes minutes before going outside to practice.”
The defender later reported to preseason tryouts in Bradenton, Florida. During that time, Minniss reportedly had a meeting with the head coach Matt Potter and general manager Cami Levin Ashton, in which she expressed their lack of communication to her.
“She was laughed at by them and told not to focus on her goal of getting a contract from them,” Nicole Minniss wrote of that meeting. Mykiaa later was cut from the team.
She then spent a few days in preseason camp with the Orlando Pride, during which she was “treated exceptionally,” but she later decided to focus on her mental health and stepped away from the sport.
In a statement to the Kansas City Star, the NWSL Players’ Association said: “We take Mykiaa’s concerns and that of her family very seriously. We are actively looking into it. NWSL reached out immediately, and there will be a prompt and thorough inquiry.”
Under the NWSL’s collective bargaining agreement, teams are required to provide housing and either per diem or meals to trialists participating in preseason camps. Travel costs are not addressed, although another section does discuss relocation expenses for “newly signed and relocating players.”
NWSL commissioner Jessica Berman also addressed the report Saturday, saying she had spoken with NWSLPA executive director Meghann Burke as well as Current owners Angie and Chris Long.
“We share a commitment in that we all take this really seriously,” Berman said. “We want to understand what happened in this circumstance. We’re incredibly sad that was her experience, and we want to see how we can improve in the future and learn from this. So I have a lot of confidence with the people that are around the table, both proactively to create positive environments, as well as for the people who are prepared to be responsive in real time when there are challenges and we’re committed to seeing it through.”