Another Washington Spirit coach is departing DC, with multiple weekend reports linking current manager Jonatan Giráldez to the newly opened head coaching job at French Première Ligue side OL Lyonnes.
According to The Athletic, Giráldez will step away from the Spirit in June, with assistant Adrián González — who led Washington as interim manager prior to Giráldez's mid-2024 arrival — set to take over the NWSL squad on July 18th.
The move follows additional reports that first-year OL Lyonnes boss Joe Montemurro is Australia-bound after agreeing to head up his home country's national team, the Matildas.
Spirit coach swap raises questions for multi-team owner Kang
With Giráldez jumping from one Michele Kang-owned team to another, the former Barcelona manager's European return raises questions about Kang's multi-club ownership model — and concerns about the future of injured Spirit star Trinity Rodman, who recently took leave from the NWSL to seek treatment overseas.
"We are not going to sacrifice one team to make another team successful. Absolutely not," Kang told Forbes in 2024 interview. "Our goal is to make every team the champion in each of their leagues."
In addition to the Spirit and OL Lyonnes, Kang's Kynisca corporation also owns recently promoted WSL side London City Lionesses.
The Spirit has weathered big changes before, but Kang's involvement in this particular personnel swap will face critique should Washington lose pace later this season.
France's Olympique Lyonnais is now OL Lyonnes, with team owner Michele Kang announcing the Lyon rebrand of the world's most successful women's soccer club on Monday.
In an effort to distance themselves further from the men's side while still paying homage to the team's home of Lyon, the now-independent club merged the word "lionne," French for lioness, with the city's name.
Along with the new name, OL Lyonnes has a refreshed crest, departing from the club's traditional lion and instead opting for a gold-crowned, blue- and yellow-maned red lioness posed mid-roar.
"This is not about just a name change and some graphic changes," Kang told reporters on Monday. "This is about giving the most successful women's team in the world its own platform, its own identity."
"We’re not a subset of the men's team. We are a standalone force."
New facilities to fuel continued OL Lyonnes dominance
The team, whose roster includes USWNT captain Lindsey Heaps, has a history of setting the standard for what's possible on the women's pitch.
The eight-time Champions League winners scored their 18th Division 1 Féminine championship in 19 years on Friday, boosting the 21-year-old club's tally to a world record-extending 39 titles.
Kang literally bought in on that success, purchasing the club last August, pulling it under the umbrella of her global multi-team organization Kynisca Sports International alongside the NWSL's Washington Spirit and newly promoted WSL side London City.
The rebrand is just one part of Kang's next steps with OL Lyonnes, with the billionaire investor also committing to financing the renovation of the club's boys' academy training facilities to turn them into a new performance center designed specifically for women's soccer athletes.
While the club is aiming for a July 2026 opening of that training center, OL Lyonnes will have a more immediate upgrade for matchdays, with Kang stating that all future games will take place in the 59,186-seat Groupama Stadium — a venue with nearly 39 times the capacity of the nearby 1,524-seat Stade Gérard Houllier that served as the team's primary home pitch.
"From day one, I was impressed with how the women's team has achieved this kind of success with the amount of resources that was available to them," said Kang during the Monday announcement.
"The best team in the world... playing the majority of games at a training center. It is unfitting," Kang told the Associated Press. "We want our fans to be part of our journey, part of our community and you can't achieve fan engagement by constantly switching back and forth."
English soccer club London City earned both a trophy and promotion from the UK's second-tier Women's Championship league this weekend, lifting the Michele Kang-owned Lionesses into the top-flight Women's Super League (WSL) next season.
With a 2-2 draw against second-place Birmingham City in Sunday's 2024/25 season finale, London City sealed the single point they needed to claim the second-flight league title and secure their ticket to the 2025/26 WSL campaign.
Originally affiliated with second-tier Millwall FC, the Lionesses separated from the men's side in 2019, and will become the only independent club in the WSL when they join next season.
London City is 'only going up' thanks to Kang
London City's rise is major success story for owner Michele Kang and her multi-team organization Kynisca — which also owns the NWSL's Washington Spirit and French club Lyon — as the Lionesses reach the UK's top-flight just two seasons after Kang's 2023 purchase of the club.
Next fall, London City will take the WSL spot of last season's promoted team, Crystal Palace, who were relegated from the top-tier league last month and currently hold a dismal 2-15-4 record.
Crystal Palace's struggles to compete after leveling up are nothing new, with many promoted clubs often stumbling into relegation after a single season.
That's a pattern Kang aims to break, with the women's sports mogul planning to see the Lionesses rise up the WSL and, later, into Champions League play.
"We have been building a team to be at a minimum, on day one, mid-tier WSL," Kang told the BBC.
"When I first came here a lot of people were concerned for me," Kang explained. "How can an independent women's team survive if you don't have the male team that can provide the brand and resources? Here we are. We made it."
"This is proof, we are only going up."
Washington Spirit owner Michele Kang is going all in to grow US women’s soccer, announcing an additional investment of $25 million into US Soccer last Friday.
The move follows Kang's November 2024 initial gift of $30 million over the course of five years, earmarked for talent identification and increased youth competition opportunities for future USWNT players, as well as professional development for female players, coaches, and referees.
Friday's investment follows a slightly different, yet parallel path in that it aims to "accelerate advancements in the women’s game through science, innovation, and elevated best practices" by integrating Kang’s Kynisca Innovation Hub into US Soccer’s Soccer Forward Foundation.
Kynisca, US Soccer collab aims to scale research and standards
Under the umbrella of Kang’s global multi-team organization Kynisca Sports International, the Innovation Hub is a science-based platform that aims to improve research and development for women’s sports athletes.
Similarly, the Soccer Forward Foundation aims to grow the game by expanding access, all while implementing the sport's latest research and guidelines.
Friday's partnership between the two organizations has two main goals: improving the sport's health outcomes via research and solution-oriented initiatives, and creating and implementing best-practice standards to grow the global game.
According to USSF President Cindy Parlow Cone, the new collaboration will "[help] ensure [the US will] remain at the forefront of progress as the sport continues to grow around the world" by "[driving] real change through research-backed standards that support players at every level."
Kang, who also owns top French side Lyon and second-tier UK club London City, noted that the collaboration "represents a major step forward in advancing research and setting new standards for women’s sports."
"By working together, we are ensuring that players at all levels benefit from innovative insights and best practices," Kang said in a statement. "Women’s soccer is experiencing historic growth, but there’s still work to be done to break down systemic barriers and secure the investment needed for female athletes."