In KC, coach of U.S. National Women’s Team hasn’t stopped prepping his soccer stars

Vlatko Andonovski has talked to his U.S. Women’s National Team players and staff about the incredible experience of going to the Olympics.

Those USWNT players, many of whom are no strangers to the international stage, have raved about the intensity of the Summer Games, the high level of play and the energy the Olympic experience brings to fans.

Andonovski has never had the opportunity to experience Olympic soccer firsthand. The Kansas City resident in his first year of coaching the national team had hoped 2020 would offer that chance.

Instead, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, this year’s Summer Games were moved to 2021. The 2020 opening ceremonies were to take place June 23 in Tokyo, but he’ll have to wait until next year to get his first taste of that high-stakes competition.

“This was going to be the first real test for myself as a coach and for the team all together with me,” said Andonovski, the former KC Comets and Wichita Wings pro soccer player and former coach of the Comets and now-defunct FC Kansas City club.

“So I was looking forward to the challenge, looking forward to the competition and to actually see how far we could go.”

Andonovski, who led an FCKC team that included the likes of Lauren Holliday and Becky Sauerbrunn to back-to-back National Women’s Soccer League championships in 2014-15, said that up until the moment the 2020 Olympics were canceled in March, he assumed organizers of this year’s Games would find a way to proceed this summer.

The Olympics had only been called off three times prior — during World War I (1916) and World War II (1940, 1944).

When Andonovski’s national team won the CONCACAF Olympic Qualifying Tournament in early 2020, he believed things were headed in the right direction. They had loads of momentum.

Andonovski credited his coaching staff for being creative with their planning and keeping that momentum going in recent months, almost entirely over phones and computers.

Players have been given specific workouts structured around their unique individual profiles. Their movements have been meticulously analyzed. They’ve taken part in positional meetings and larger team gatherings, all via virtual means.

“Now that the Olympics are postponed, and hopefully they’re going to happen next year, that gives us a bit more time to do a little more analysis and evaluation on the players that are eligible to play for the country,” Andonovski said.

The coach recently took advantage of this unexpected free time by attending the NWSL Challenge Cup in Utah — he was there until last Friday. During his time in Salt Lake City, he was able to attend 25 games and about 50 practices, with the goal of scouting potential additions to next year’s USWNT roster.

The environment in Salt Lake was incredible, Andonovski said, and it gave him and his staff a chance to see how particular players interact with their coaches, as well as their work ethic.

The USWNT has long established itself as a dominant force globally, and Andonovski wants to build upon that success across all age groups and levels of girls and women’s competitive soccer.

Now back home in Kansas City, he’s still focused on learning as much as he can about his new team.

And when the Olympics finally do arrive, he said, he and his players will be ready.

“Obviously, I thought about it before,” he said. “I thought about it when I got the job. I thought about it when we were approaching it and getting ready for it.

“And I keep thinking about it, because the Olympics is the Olympics. We want to go out there and win it all.”