Lindsey Horan wants to see better coaches and better youth development for the U.S. women’s national team.

A four-episode Netflix docuseries released Tuesday, titled “Under Pressure,” chronicles the USWNT’s journey at the 2023 World Cup, which ended in disappointment.

In the fourth episode, co-captain Horan offered up some criticism after the team’s exit in the Round of 16, which was its earliest ever at a World Cup. Horan, who plays for French club Olympique Lyonnais, attributes the disappointing result in part to the rest of the world catching up – and in part to the evolving style of play.

“The international game, it’s such a nice style of football,” Horan said. “You’re playing these little tiny passes here and there. They’re so confident on the ball. They’re so technical. We need to progress in this possession style of play. We need better coaches. We need better youth development. We need more investment there.”

Some of the issues with the USWNT also can be traced back to former head coach Vlatko Andonovski, who resigned following the World Cup.

“I don’t think we were set up well to go on and have the success to win it,” Lynn Williams said in the series. “When you only win three out of the ten games, there’s no way you’re gonna have that coach carry on. … When we’re held to this standard, the coaching staff also has to be.”

Alex Morgan, Horan’s co-captain, noted that both she and Horan had “really honest” conversations with Andonovski. But she also knows that not every player felt as comfortable or could be as vulnerable with their coach.

And Horan also acknowledged that some of the responsibility for the team’s failure fell on the players.

“Obviously Vlatko gives us the game plan every single game, but we’re the players on the field,” she said.

New head coach Emma Hayes has brought some life back to the squad, with players excited about the new direction. Interim head coach Twila Kilgore will lead the team until Hayes joins in May following the conclusion of Chelsea’s season. But the Paris Olympics start in July, leading some to question whether or not the team can succeed in the short term. And for some, succeeding in the short term is imperative.

“How we silence the critics going forward now, in this moment,” former USWNT forward Tobin Heath said near the end of the series, “is we go to an Olympics, and we win an Olympics.”

The U.S. women’s national team faced massive attention and expectations at the 2023 World Cup, as displayed in the new trailer for its Netflix docuseries.

The four-episode series, titled “Under Pressure,” will debut on the streaming service on Dec. 12. It chronicles the USWNT’s World Cup journey, which ended in disappointment in a Round of 16 shootout loss to Sweden.

In the trailer, Savannah DeMelo, who had made just one appearance for the USWNT before heading to the tournament in Australia and New Zealand, offers a brutal comparison to Suzanne Collins’ popular book series: “It felt like we were in ‘The Hunger Games’ or something.”

The trailer also features co-captains Alex Morgan and Lindsey Horan encouraging the team on the quest for a third straight World Cup title.

“Pressure is a privilege on this team,” Horan tells her teammates. “Look at everyone around you. Look at me and Alex.”

Megan Rapinoe, Kelley O’Hara, Kristie Mewis and Lynn Williams also feature prominently, as do former players Abby Wambach and Carli Lloyd. Lloyd made waves during the 2023 World Cup for her harsh criticism of the USWNT.

“You can never take winning ever for granted,” Lloyd is heard saying in the trailer.

U.S. Soccer president Cindy Parlow Cone, who won the 1999 World Cup with the USWNT, sums up the trailer and the team’s unfulfilled goal, saying: “To win one is hard. To win two in a row, unbelievable. To win three? It has never been done.”

Follow the most decorated team in international soccer history as they prepare for the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup. Under Pressure: The Women’s World Cup Team premieres on December 12th. pic.twitter.com/8PijyycAK2

— Netflix (@netflix) November 28, 2023

After Midge Purce was left off the U.S. women’s national team roster at the end of 2022, former head coach Vlatko Andonovski said she would have the chance to “fight for her spot.”

Almost a year later, Purce has done just that — and now she’ll be attending USWNT events as an NWSL Champion and the Championship MVP after she was named to the December training camp roster.

“What a great game [the NWSL Championship] was to watch live, in so many ways, and Midge had an excellent game, obviously earning MVP,” USWNT interim head coach Twila Kilgore said. “She did an excellent job making a case for herself and I would say that’s a message to everybody — that their performance and their day-to-day, what they’re doing matters, that we’re watching and that they’ll be rewarded appropriately for their work.”

Purce made the case for herself in the second half of the NWSL season after missing 10 weeks due to a torn quad through July. She rebounded well from her injury, scoring four goals in her 12 appearances for Gotham FC in the regular season. Leading up to the season, Purce made her ambitions clear. 

“Last year is not something that was enjoyable for me, it makes me sick,” Purce said. “This year I want to score goals on both the national team and for the club, I want to be a top player in both settings. That’s all I’m after.”

Purce lived up to her own expectations, including becoming the second player in league history to contribute two assists in a championship match. She assisted on both goals in Gotham’s 2-1 win over OL Reign to win the title. And she successfully fought for her USWNT roster spot. 

“I think Midge is a very special talent with very strong 1-v-1 ability, and she showcased that special quality,” Kilgore said. “But she also did a lot of defending in the game and was a big part of their overall team tactics, which I think is also important.”

Savannah DeMelo’s World Cup call-up was a surprise to many – including the midfielder herself.

Speaking on the latest episode of Just Women’s Sports’ “Snacks” podcast, DeMelo described herself as “in shock” when then-U.S. women’s national team head coach Vlatko Andonovski told her she had made the World Cup roster. While she knew she was on his radar, she hadn’t gotten called in for the team in any of the previous 2023 camps.

Andonovski had wanted to see her continue to improve with her club, Racing Louisville. And she did, becoming one of the NWSL’s leading scorers ahead of the World Cup. And after the April camp, she heard from Andonovski “weekly” about her club progress, she said.

“It definitely was a little more stressful when I did get that feedback,” she said. “And obviously Vlatko had been telling me things he wanted me to work on. So then I’m like, oh, I want to make sure I’m doing that in the game while also implementing what my team needs from me. So it was kind of that balance.”

Racing Louisville general manager Ryan Dell had told DeMelo that she remained Andonovski’s long list for the World Cup.

“So it wasn’t like a complete shock. But still, the odds were not in my favor,” she said. “So when he called me and said I made the team, I was really in shock.”

Still, the opportunity to play at the World Cup was a dream come true for DeMelo. She made her first USWNT appearance in the send-off match against Wales, and then she started the first two group-stage matches.

“It was definitely something I had always wanted. Like, obviously growing up, you want to be a part of a World Cup team. It’s like all of our dreams,” she said. “But I wasn’t getting called into camp, so it was not on my vision board. I knew I wanted to work hard and give myself the best possible chance. But no, definitely just with the help of my (Racing Louisville) teammates and the team was doing well — that’s I think what helped me get there, but I did not see it coming.”

Former U.S. women’s national team manager Vlatko Andonovski received multiple job offers from the MLS and abroad before agreeing to become the coach of the Kansas City Current.

On Monday, Andonovski was named coach and sporting director of the Current, marking his return to the NWSL. According to Andonovski, he also had offers from MLS clubs, other NWSL clubs and other national teams.

“It’s not a secret that I did have offers from the NWSL. I had offers from MLS — it was mainly assistant coaching positions in MLS and even internationally from different national teams,” he said.

Ultimately, Andonovski decided to stay in Kansas City, where he says the community helped to lift him up after his disappointing showing at the World Cup and subsequent resignation from the USWNT. Andonovski previously coached former NWSL club FC Kansas City, winning two titles in 2014 and 205.

“Like I said, the moment that I talked to the ownership group here and they shared their vision and goals for this team, I think that it was very clear to me where I want to be and what I want to do in the future,” he said.

When the Kansas City Current announced they had hired former U.S. women’s national team manager Vlatko Andonovski as their head coach on Monday, reactions were understandably mixed. Andonovski is a coach with an impressive NWSL resume, who nonetheless returns to the league with failures to answer for at his most recent position.

Andonovski currently represents two conflicting reputations: a championship-winning NWSL coach returning to his roots, and the coach who oversaw the worst World Cup finish in U.S. women’s national team history.

Kansas City’s leadership has faith that Andonovski’s ability to shape a roster with more time and communication than was afforded to him at the international level will pay dividends at the club level. There’s no reason to believe that this can’t be a successful partnership, but a few questions do remain.

Where he can turn things around

The Current had an exciting offseason in 2023, looking to create the right balance of veterans and young talent to turn their high-flying attack into a team that can control matches on both sides of the ball. But the season didn’t play out the way they intended. Injuries to top free agents and a few core defenders set Kansas City on the wrong path early, and the quick dismissal of coach Matt Potter did not do much to turn things around.

Based on his time in the NWSL, Andonovski is a good fit to take on the Current project due to a number of strengths. One is in his emphasis on defense, something he can point to as a bright spot of the USWNT’s World Cup campaign. His FC Kansas City championship teams were anchored by Becky Sauerbrunn in her prime, and he maintained the Reign’s defensive integrity in the face of many injuries during his short stint there.

While his strategic pragmatism didn’t always pan out on the world stage, with more time to implement his approach, Andonovski has the opportunity again to create one of the stingier teams in the NWSL. That focus will be welcome in Kansas City, whose hyper-attacking 3-5-2 of 2022 turned into a less effective 4-3-3 in 2023. The team struggled to close out matches without conceding, even as the attack found its footing later in the year.

Andonovski also identified his intended creative playmakers in his introductory press conference. He specifically mentioned Debinha, Michelle Cooper and Lo’eau Labonta as the types of players he wants to have the freedom to create chances. While Labonta and Debinha are seasoned NWSL veterans, Andonovski clearly has a vision for the rookie Cooper. That suggests he wants to retain cohesion in a roster that might otherwise go through some swift changes in the offseason.

Andonovski (and general manager Camille Ashton) will have to attempt to re-balance what has turned into a talented but aging and oft-injured roster. The team carried contracts for players like Sam Mewis, Desiree Scott and Hanna Glas, all of whom are incredibly dangerous players on their best day, but none saw the field in 2023. Morgan Gautrat and Vanessa DiBernardo were similarly unavailable throughout the season.

Andonovski was known for his ability to maintain steady results in the face of absences with the Reign. He’ll have a similar project to tackle in Kansas City, particularly with expansion on the horizon in 2024.

.@NWSL: Vlatko has re-entered the chat 😏#KCBABY pic.twitter.com/omBPQQ1NZy

— KC Current (@thekccurrent) October 23, 2023

You can’t always go home again

A major point of emphasis in Andonovski’s hiring is that Kansas City is his home and a place where he has been entrenched in the local women’s soccer community for many years. While his familiarity is certainly an asset, it doesn’t necessarily mean he’s destined for success in a second stint, albeit with a new club structure.

USWNT dialogue after the World Cup indicated that players didn’t always feel like they had a set style of play, nor were their roles within the team always clearly communicated. From the outside, Andonovski also seemed to freeze tactically in big games and when evaluating talent, presenting a very different image from the calm mind that had such success in the NWSL. It’s possible that he’ll feel more freedom to implement his plans in Kansas City, but his transformative experience at the helm of the U.S. might be something he needs to shake off rather than carry with him.

Andonovski’s appointment is also interesting in the context of a very similar coaching hiring and firing this past year. After the Washington Spirit struggled on the field while dealing with upheaval off of it in 2022, team owner Michele Kang sought out former coach Mark Parsons. Parsons had coached the Spirit in the early days of his NWSL tenure and returned to the club after winning trophies in Portland. In between his NWSL stints, he also had a disappointing run as coach of the Netherlands national team. Parsons’ return made immediate waves, and he was given a fair amount of control of the Spirit’s roster. He notably traded USWNT mainstay Emily Sonnett to OL Reign on draft day before the 2023 season.

Parsons oversaw an improved Spirit season, but one that finished in heartbreak after a Trinity Rodman red card and a loss to the North Carolina Courage on Decision Day cost the team a playoff spot. Nonetheless, it seemed that Washington had their high-profile coach and a foundation to build upon, so long as they trusted in the process. Then last week, Parsons was dismissed in the aftermath of the team’s inability to reach the postseason.

The story of Parsons and the Spirit is certainly a pattern that Andonovski will want to avoid, and it can serve as a warning. Ambitious ownership with the pockets to compete for national team coaches will want the results that come along with their investments. Potter’s quick dismissal as Current head coach earlier this year indicates similarly high expectations for a club that was the first to be eliminated from playoff contention this year.

Giving Andonovski the benefit of the doubt that he’s a coach who thrives in long-term processes with the day-to-day duties of a club manager makes sense. But Parsons’ experience in Washington also lays bare that the right fit isn’t always a place where you have history.

Claire Watkins is a Staff Writer at Just Women’s Sports. Follow her on Twitter @ScoutRipley.

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.”