Women's Soccer Coaching

North Carolina Courage assistant coach Emma Thomson has an important second job, as a mother. She tells Carrie Dunn more conversations must take place to improve support to women in the game trying to do both roles. 

That's the call from ambitious Hungary head coach Alexandra Szarvas to clubs as she aims to improve her country's fortunes. Carrie Dunn finds out how she got the national team job – and what she wants to do with it...

After roles with the England youth teams, Arsenal, Leicester and Brentford men's U18s, Lydia Bedford's next challenge is starting from scratch with Calgary Wild. She tells Carrie Dunn it's a big job – but one she relishes...

It's more than 6,000km from Lekeisha Gumbs' home city of Leicester to her current role with Chicago City. She tells Carrie Dunn about her transatlantic life, the value of mentorship and why every player matters...

Juggling her dual role as head coach of Racing Louisville and parent to two young girls, Bev Yanez is busy. But, she tells Carrie Dunn, support from her players and staff has been vital – particularly after a personal tragedy.CONTENT WARNING: This article, and the accompanying podcast, includes references to pregnancy loss

With silverware at Arsenal and Seattle, Laura Harvey has proved herself a champion on both sides of the Atlantic. She talks to Carrie Dunn about the advice that kickstarted it all and what she tells other women in coaching.

After 45 years shaping the early careers of some future global female stars, Anson Dorrance has retired. The former University of North Carolina and World Cup-winning USA head coach looks back with Carrie Dunn.

In April, MSU Denver head coach Kat Mertz was diagnosed with breast cancer, and, in June, opted to undergo a double mastectomy, aged 48. She speaks to Carrie Dunn and stresses the importance of early detection.

As the first woman to lead an elite male team in Kenya, FC Talanta's head coach Jackline Duma now wants to use her profile and experiences to motivate a new generation of female coaches. Carrie Dunn spoke to her.

After guiding Tottenham into the WSL and leading their transition to full-time soccer, Karen Hills now has the same task at Charlton Athletic, where she enjoyed success as a player. She explains all to Carrie Dunn.

Leadership may have come naturally to Derby County Women head coach SAMANTHA GRIFFITHS, who has been in charge for six years. But, as she tells CARRIE DUNN, some parts of management took some getting used to.

‘Emotionless' on the sidelines, but with a competitive streak that has taken her from youth soccer to the elite level, Central Coast Mariners head coach Emily Husband takes Carrie Dunn on a journey through her career...

Experiencing menopause and perimenopause symptoms is not ‘just a part of life' – there are ways you can manage them. Performance specialist and S&C coach ERICA SUTER MULHOLLAND explains how to CARRIE DUNN.

For Palmeiras head coach CAMILLA ORLANDO, soccer has always been about more than just results. She tells CARRIE DUNN about her passion for inspiring youngsters, developing the game and her own high ambitions.

One of US college soccer's most successful coaches, BECKY BURLEIGH led  the University of Florida program for 25 years and coached a star-studded Orlando Pride. She talks principles, people and Marta with CARRIE DUNN.

In 1980, self-confessed soccer novice ALICEANN WILBER became William Smith College's first head coach – 44 years, 640 wins and two national titles later, she is a Hall of Famer who tells CARRIE DUNN she still loves her job.

Gotham City head coach Juan Carlos Amoros, 2023's NWSL coach of the year, opens up to CARRIE DUNN about adapting to different cultures, delegating wisely, an emotional Spurs reunion and not being a ‘superhero'.

When it comes to understanding player behaviour, human development specialist Sally Needham says neuroscience holds the key. She explains to Carrie Dunn how to harness it and transform coaching relationships.

A goalkeeper grounded in futsal, Paige Palazzolo is now head coach of the US Women's Amputee National Team. She tells Carrie Dunn how she came to be in the role and the challenges and triumphs it can bring. Plus Women's Soccer Coaching Editor Hannah Duncan, and Editor-in-chief, Steph Fairbairn, discuss three years of WSC!Read the article: Women's Soccer Coaching - Coaching Advice - Paige Palazzolo: Coaching amputee players (womenssoccercoaching.com)Get more from Women's Soccer Coaching: Women's Soccer Coaching - Home (womenssoccercoaching.com)

Earlier this year, Chelsea Noonan took a leap of faith - leaving behind what she describes as her “dream job” to move halfway across the world for a new challenge.Previously, Noonan worked for the Football Association of Ireland (FAI) as a development officer and as assistant coach for the U17s women's national team. Now, she is in Melbourne, working with Women's A-League team Western United in a dual assistant-coach and analysis role. So what was it that made her move to Australia?Read the article: Women's Soccer Coaching - Coaching Advice - Chelsea Noonan: Moving to Australia (womenssoccercoaching.com)Get more from Women's Soccer Coaching: Women's Soccer Coaching - Home (womenssoccercoaching.com)

Carolina Morace is the new leader of the pack at London City Lionesses. But what lured the Italy icon to England's second tier? She discusses the reasons and how she gets her playing style across with Steph Fairbairn.Read the article: Women's Soccer Coaching - Coaching Advice - Carolina Morace: Leading London City Lionesses (womenssoccercoaching.com)Get more from Women's Soccer Coaching: Women's Soccer Coaching - Home (womenssoccercoaching.com)

In a year's time, history will be made for Lincoln University of Missouri when its women's soccer team begins its first-ever season.The team will compete in the Great Lakes Valley Conference, an NCAA Division II level league. It will be led by Leah Stringer, a former interim head coach at Missouri Western and assistant coach at Northeast Texas Community College.On the honour of being Lincoln University's first women's soccer coach, Stringer told WSC: “When the announcement came out, my family and friends were all congratulating me and asking how it feels.“To this day, honestly, I cannot answer that question. I just have this endless to-do list going on in my head.”That mental ticklist comes with building a program from scratch. Stringer is doing everything, from designing uniforms and locker rooms, getting a feel for the community and recruiting staff and players.She has a lot of autonomy with what she builds and how she builds it, backed by the trust of those that hired her.

“Success, for me, is a process,” says Boston University women's soccer head coach Casey Brown.“It is the process of trying to become great,” she adds. “It is the process of trying to become better every day. It's the journey.“That's how we view it in our program. That's how I try to view it in the way I lead and coach.“It is not a destination but a journey and a process that we get to go on every day with our amazing student athletes.”

In the final episode of our special series, Steph Fairbairn and Matt Ross, Republic of Korea Assistant coach, catch up after Korea held Germany to a 1-1 draw.Matt reflects on a brilliant performance and result, ponders why it took so long for Korea to show what they can do, explains what life will look like for him over the next few weeks, and offers coaches of all levels some solid advice...

In episode three of our special series, Steph Fairbairn and Matt Ross, Republic of Korea Assistant coach, chat once more.It's the day after Korea's 1-0 loss to Morocco, which leaves them at the bottom of their World Cup group.Matt reflects honestly on his team's performance throughout the tournament so far,  shares more about his support system, and looks ahead to Korea's final group fixture against Germany...

In the second episode of our special series, Steph Fairbairn and Matt Ross, Republic of Korea Assistant coach, chat again.This time, it's the day after Korea's 2-0 defeat to Colombia. Matt shares his thoughts on the game, how the team's attention has quickly turned to the next fixture against Morocco, and what his schedule is like as a coach at the World Cup...

In the first episode in a special series, Steph Fairbairn sits down with Matt Ross, Republic of Korea Assistant coach, to get an insight into what goes into being a soccer coach on the biggest stage of them all.It's the night before Korea's first match - a Group H fixture against Colombia.Matt shares how the team have prepared, how they want to play, and, importantly, if he thinks he'll get any sleep ahead of the big event...

In July 2021, Molly Bartrip rejoined Tottenham Hotspur, the club where she had started her career as a nine-year-old.Bartrip was 25 at the time of her homecoming, which she called a “full circle” moment. She had been away from the club for 16 years, most recently at Arsenal and Reading, and hit 100 WSL appearances in April this year. However, “full circle” also referred to the journey she'd been on as a person in that time.In February 2022, half a season into her second stint with her club, Bartrip detailed that journey in depth in a piece for The Players' Tribune.The piece, titled ‘Ana', after the name Bartrip gave to her anorexia, is brave and brutally honest.  She shared her experience of anorexia nervosa, which she was diagnosed with at the age of 14, and severe depression and anxiety, which she was diagnosed with a few years into playing professional soccer.

For the first time since 2007, Denmark are going to the Women's World Cup.An outstanding qualifying campaign – winning all eight games, scoring 40 goals and conceding only two - was built on the lessons from last year's Euros.On that occasion, Denmark didn't get out of a group which also contained Germany, Spain and Finland.Heading into this tournament, though, they are equipped with more experience and, many would say, an easier group. Alongside European champions England, Denmark's other early opposition are China and Haiti.While head coach Lars Søndergaard feels progress this time round is more realistic, he is focused on the different challenges the draw represents.“We are up against tough opponents, but that's the experience we now have to test a little bit,” Søndergaard told Women's Soccer Coaching. 

In the first season of the USL W League - a pre-professional women's soccer league in the USA - Minnesota Aurora lived up to its name and shone.Nicole Lukic's team topped the Heartland Division, winning 11 of 12 games and drawing the other, scoring 35 goals and boasting the second highest goal difference across all the league's seven divisions.Sadly, they saved their first loss for the championship game, when Tormenta FC beat them 2-1 after extra time. So near, and yet it will have felt so far.The USLW awarded Aurora the Organization of the Year award for its performance both on and off the field and Lukic won Coach of the Year for the unbeaten regular season.Naturally, Lukic, now also the club's sporting director, says she would “trade all of that for winning that final game”, but describes it as “incredible to have that sort of recognition after year one”. Lukic is not only referring to the USL W League's first season, but Aurora's debut campaign, too.Unlike the bulk of teams competing in the league, Aurora was built from the ground up in advance of the league's launch in 2022.Founded in 2021, Aurora is a women-led, community-owned team, the first of its kind in the US. A community round raised over $1 million from more than 3,000 fans in three months. Aurora is owned by people in 48 different states, and eight different countries.When asked what it means to have a group of people so supportive of a venture she is at the forefront of, Lukic said: “It's incredible. It means everything. It's really helped me with my recruiting process.“You feel it when you go to TCO [Stadium, Aurora's home field]. You feel like the community is behind you. 

In December 2021, Meg Ryan Nemzer took on her dream job – head women's soccer coach at the University of Maryland. For the Maryland native, getting offered the role was a ‘full circle' moment. Nemzer attended Rutgers University in New Jersey, where she was co-captain for three consecutive seasons and a key pillar of what many called the best defense in the country.In 2006, the team conceded just six goals and achieved 16 clean sheets – the most in Rutgers' history.Nemzer went on to coach at Rutgers, spending 14 years there and working her way up from the bottom - through volunteer director of operations, second assistant, first assistant and recruiting coordinator, before spending the last eight seasons of her spell there as associate head coach.In her last season at Rutgers, the team won the Big Ten Championship and achieved a final ranking of number three in the nation.In 2015, Nemzer became the first female head coach to win an ECNL National Championship, in charge of the Arsenal Players Development Academy.This path of success is one that Nemzer has forged for herself – and she has used every step along the way to prepare herself to excel in the head coach role.

For Sarah Lowdon, the past year has been somewhat of a whirlwind.She went from being unemployed - a volunteer coach at college level - to acting head coach on the US's biggest stage.Having left Penn State University in 2021 and joined NWSL team Houston Dash in March 2022 as an assistant coach, Lowdon was elevated to acting head coach just weeks later. She kept that role for half a season.“It was a crazy year,” Lowdon reflects to WSC, on a period when she went from no job to having three different roles in the space of 12 months.“The decision you make is the right one always, because you go with your gut and I always go with what aligns with my values.“I had never been a head coach before. I had no idea what head coaches do until I got thrust into it.“Those four months of my life were an amazing period. I'm grateful to the players for buying in and getting the job done.”The job she refers to includes a six-game unbeaten streak, and a playoff finish for the first time in the Dash's history, with Lowdon more than playing her part in the team's most successful season ever.If you don't know the history of Lowdon's career, you might be wondering how she went from volunteer to successful head coach in such a short space of time. Originally from Newcastle, in northeast England, where she played for her beloved Newcastle United, Lowdon moved to the US to continue her on-field career.She went on to work in volunteer roles at colleges and the South Texas Youth Soccer Association, spent time with the Dash as an assistant from 2015-2017, and was director of operations and equipment manager at the University of Florida.Lowdon's career choices, and the decisions she has made with her gut, have at times looked unconventional - but the approach has, she says, been about “experience over titles”.

In 1992, the backpass rule was brought in by soccer lawmakers IFAB - and inadvertantly changed one player's career.Introduced to discourage time-wasting, the rule dictates that a goalkeeper cannot handle the ball following an intentional pass from a teammate, made using the foot. It had a significant effect on the role of the goalkeeper and how they are coached, both technically and tactically.More specifically, it made a direct impact on Lisa Cole. Now director of goalkeeping at United Soccer Coaches, Cole began her playing career as an outfielder.“I'm actually a goalkeeper because of the rule change,” she told Women's Soccer Coaching. 

Anja's journey - from being a lone girl in boys' teams to among the most qualified and well-respected female coaches in Denmark - has been one in which she has “said yes to every opportunity”,As a player, she worked her way through the youth national teams, before gaining seven caps for the senior team. A midfielder, she was part of the Danish squad at the 2001 European Championships, where they were knocked out by Sweden in the semi-finals.She also played in the Uefa Women's Cup - now the Women's Champions League - for Brøndby IF, before retiring aged 25 and taking up a role coaching the club's U18s.Her coaching gigs since have included eight years at a boarding school in Copenhagen, instructing other coaches on Uefa C and B licence courses for the Danish FA, and moving to Canada for three years, where she worked at the Vancouver Whitecaps and North Shore Girls Soccer Club academies.More recently, she was head coach of the U18s girls team at FC Nordsjælland before becoming head coach of Denmark's U19s in July last year. She is also taking the Uefa Pro Licence course - one of only two women in a group of around 20.

Mirelle van Rijbroek is the person currently in charge of unearthing the next rough diamonds to be shaped into sparkling gems.Since 2017, van Rijbroek has been the US Soccer Federation's (USSF) Director of Talent Identification for the girls' pathway, a job she says is more a “way of life”.Born in the Netherlands, van Rijbroek moved to Australia at the age of 22 to pursue her dream of playing soccer at the highest level. While playing, and working, she completed her Uefa C, B and A licences.She went on to be a talent coach for the KNVB [Royal Dutch Football Association] and got her first full-time role in soccer as a coach and technical manager at Willem II, a then newly-formed, but now disbanded, women's team competing in the Eredivisie.Van Rijbroek was later head of talent ID, talent development and elite performance for the Dutch youth national teams, a role she says allowed her to provide opportunities to female players with a dream.Her current role with the USSF has three strands: youth national-team development, talent identification education and supporting members and clubs in their talent ID initiatives.

On November 20, under the lights at Sky Stadium, and in front of up to 34,500 fans, Wellington Phoenix will make history.When the team kicks off their 2022-23 A-League Women campaign, it will be thefirst time a professional women's soccer team from New Zealand have played on the country's soil.Phoenix joined the league last season as an expansion team, but - like their male counterparts - played their home games in Australia, to avoid the travel complications associated with Covid restrictions.Now, though, they are able to return home - and head coach Natalie Lawrence says their first game, against Melbourne City, will be “a pretty incredible moment for women's football in New Zealand”.She added: “To be able to walk out with the team, see that and be part of that, is going to be one of those moments I don't even properly allow myself to fully take in until after the game.“And to do it with this group of players, who I've worked with for a number of years, that moment after the game – win, lose or draw – will be one of pride.”

In their first year as an NWSL expansion team, and despite finishing eighth in the standings, Angel City FC had one of the best defensive records in the division, bettered only by the top three.It is something the new Los Angeles team prides themselves on, says head coach Freya Coombe. And it is no coincidence that they have achieved it with Coombe in charge.Indeed, in the 2021 season, when she was at the helm of NJ/NY Gotham FC (formerly Sky Blue FC), they boasted the second-best defensive performance in the league. It is, Coombe admits, something that runs at the heart of her coaching practice.“Looking at how we protect the goal is the number one principle that we have,” she tells Women's Soccer Coaching.

Rachel Lever is women's youth academy manager at Manchester City, overseeing the under-16s and under-21s. She also lives, and coaches, with endometriosis.It is a debilitating condition, where tissue similar to the lining of the womb starts to grow in other places, such as the ovaries and fallopian tubes.Some of the key symptoms include severe pain that stops or restricts normal activity, feeling sick, heavy periods and, sometimes, fertility problems. In the UK, it takes, on average, eight years - yes, years - for someone to be diagnosed with endometriosis.Lever describes herself as “fortunate” for being diagnosed after just a couple of years.But it wasn't good luck that got her the diagnosis. It was advocating for herself at a time when she knew something was really wrong.

In November 2017, Carla Ward joined Sheffield United - then in the fourth tier of the English women's pyramid - as player assistant manager.She had just left United's cross-city neighbours Sheffield FC, who were in the second-tier WSL 2. It was the classic case of an experienced head dropping down a couple of divisions to offer the benefit of their experience, both on and off the pitch. But just three months later came Ward's Sliding Doors moment.United manager Dan O'Hearne stepped down, forcing the 34-year-old Ward into a difficult decision – whether or not to hang up her boots and step into management full-time.“If I didn't take it at that moment, knowing I probably only had a few months left playing, then I potentially might have lost that opportunity,” she told WSC.What followed in the five years since has been somewhat of a whirlwind - and has resulted in Ward being one of the most respected names in English women's soccer.

Part 1 - Amy Rodriguez - A-Rod's New EraAll-time US great AMY RODRIGUEZ is taking her first steps into coaching after accepting an offer to return to the college where her storied playing career began. She reveals to STEPH FAIRBAIRN how it all came about...Part 2 - Lou Roberts - Stoking the FireShe lived a dream by captaining her hometown club. Now LOU ROBERTS is on the coaching staff and tells STEPH FAIRBAIRN about her journey...

Elite girls' soccer in Wales has just come to the end of a transformative season – the first in which the Football Association of Wales (FAW) Trust Girls' Academy u14s and u16s squads competed against boys.When this plan was announced in April 2021, Lowri Roberts - head of women's and girls' football at the FAW, and the spearhead behind this new approach - said: “Our aim is simple; to provide more best-v-best opportunities in training and games for our most talented girls.”She was just as committed to that goal last month, when I caught up with her and colleague Kat Lovett, the girls' age-group manager at the FAW Trust, who is leading the programme in south Wales.Both refer several times to “developing the next Jess Fishlock”, the first Wales player to earn 100 caps for the national team.And it is this high-end achievement the two organisations have set their sights on.

Reflecting on how the female game has changed over the course of her coaching career is no mean feat for Tracey Kevins. During her near 20-year career in soccer, it has, she says, developed immeasurably into something that would have seemed “too far a reach for the female game” when she started out.Kevins was at the FA between 2005 and 2012, operating as a coach across the U15s, U17s, U19s and U23s age groups. She began working in the US in 2013, first as head coach with LA Strikers FC, then as technical director of LA Blues Soccer Club and Seattle Reign FC.Since 2017, Kevins has been with the US Soccer Federation, starting out as the women's U17s national team head coach, before stepping up to the U20s role. Alongside the changes in participation and investment, Kevins has also witnessed huge changes in the concept of the player itself. Something which, she says, will only continue to develop.

Stephanie Savino is counting down the days until May 17, when the first ball is kicked in the new USL W League.A revived and slightly tweaked version of the 1995-2015 iteration of the W-League, the competition is described on its website as “the nation's pre-professional league, developing the next generation of women's talent both on and off the field, enhancing the women's soccer pipeline between college and professional soccer”.It seems a perfect fit for Savino, who has spent her life's work advocating for females to have more space in soccer.She offers WSC what she describes as her “elevator pitch”, of who she is and what she does. 

Keri Sanchez comes with a glowing resume – a standout playing career intertwinedwith, then followed by, a number of high profile, successful coaching roles.Sanchez's first step into coaching came in 1996 with a call from the former goalkeepercoach of her college team, the North Carolina Tar Heels: Bill Steffen.Steffen was going to restart the University of Oregon's women's soccer program, ashead coach, and he invited Sanchez to be his assistant.Having just graduated from the University of North Carolina with a BA in health andphysical education, Sanchez put aside thoughts of potentially training to be a doctor, and followed Steffen to Oregon, where she spent almost seven years.As I caught up with Sanchez, she was looking to hire an assistant of her own, after recently taking on her first NCAA Division I head coach role at Colorado College.

Each coaching role offers its challenges. Some, however, are more challenging than others.Coach Michele Nagamine currently holds one of those more challenging roles. Since December 2010, she has been head coach of the women's soccer program at the University of Hawaii.They are one of 11 teams in the Big West Conference – the other 10 are all based in California, six hours' flight away. That means the season is littered with the complexity of air travel, hotels and tailored preparation, on top of the road trips everyone else makes.“We fly over 20,000 miles a season,” Michele told Women's Soccer Coaching. “Once we get to the place we're at, we drive another 1,200 on the ground. So I have zero sympathy for people who take one road trip!“But that's the nature of our business. We know what we have to do when we play for Hawaii and when we coach for Hawaii.“It is a very beautiful place, but a very challenging place to be a coach, just because of our proximity to everybody else.”

Katayoun “Kat” Khosrowyar is studying for a Masters degree in global affairs at Rice University in Houston, Texas.The purpose, she tells Women's Soccer Coaching, is to “put all my skills, abilities and experience under one umbrella”. It would need to be a sizeable umbrella.Growing up in Oklahoma, with Iranian heritage, Kat became an avid soccer player, describing the first time she touched the ball as “love at first sight”.On a family holiday to Iran in 2005, Kat was spotted playing futsal by Shahrzad Mozafar, coach of the country's national futsal team.Mozafar asked Kat to be part of the new project she was working on – the first Iranian women's national soccer team since the 1979 revolution.

Growing up in Dublin in the 1980s, Lisa Fallon had one female soccer role model – Gabriella Benson.A woman working in a male-dominated environment, Benson oversaw a professional men's team – unprecedented at that time.There was one problem. Benson was fictional – the lead character in UK television series The Manageress.It still had an impact on the teenage Fallon, watching back home in Ireland.“It was the first time I ever saw a woman in football,” Fallon told Women's Soccer Coaching. “It was incredible.”“I don't know, if I had never seen it, if I would have pursued it [a career in soccer]. It just goes to show that whole thing of ‘you can't see, you can't be'”.Fallon went on to become Ireland's first female head coach of a men's pro club. She was also the first female pundit on men's professional matches on Irish TV.

2021 saw FC Barcelona Feminí become the first Spanish club to complete a continental treble – winning the Primera Division, Copa de la Reina and, for the first time, the Uefa Champions League.Women's Soccer Coaching sat down for an exclusive interview with manager, Jonatan Giraldez.

 Heather Dyche says the question she gets asked most is: ‘What advice would you give coaches looking to carve their own career path in soccer?'. You need only look at Dyche's packed Twitter bio to work out why. She is head coach of the University of New Mexico's (UNM) women's team, on the technical staff of New Mexico United, a FIFA technical expert, the only female coach on Concacaf's education board, and founder and head coach of the LEAD Soccer Academy. And In January this year, she was elected to United Soccer Coaches' board of directors, on which she will serve a six-year term.  Her hectic days follow a pattern, to a degree - training at UNM in the morning; player meetings, video reviews, and preparing for the next trip in the afternoon; and teaching courses for US Soccer, Concacaf, Fifa and other bodies in the evenings. The string which ties these varied roles together is Dyche's approach: people-first, rather than player-first. She and her staff at UNM have been talking a lot about what this means in practise. 

 Yolanda Thomas - head coach of Tulsa Soccer Club and director of coaching for its girls program - has spotted a trend that needs addressing. “We all know we need more women coaching,” she notes. “But if we're going to have more women coaching, inevitably we're going to end up with more mothers. “If we want these women to keep coaching, how can we support them?” Part of the solution is the Moms Who Coach initiative, a United Soccer Coaches (USC) group set up earlier this year that Thomas co-chairs. 

 As a player, Denise Schilte-Brown set college scoring records on her way to playing professionally in Germany and representing her native Canada. And in almost 25 years as a coach, she has mentored some top strikers, including current Canada breakthrough star Evelyne Viens. It is fair to say Schilte-Brown knows where the net is - and knows how to bring that out in others