Soccer boss Vlatko Andonovksi forges ahead with U.S. Women’s National Team duties
When it came to saluting soccer’s role in the re-start of international and American sports, Vlatko Andonovski offered a reminder about the role of the women’s game.
Before the MLS is Back Tournament was launched in Orlando, the National Women’s Soccer League was playing its own return-to-action event in Utah.
“I’ll take the liberty to say the Challenge Cup in the NWSL was the first team sport back in the States, and I thought that was great,” Andonovski said. “In some way it was a statement that women’s soccer was paving the way to getting things back to normal.”
As coach of the U.S. national team, Andonovski was more than an interested spectator at the NWSL event in June. He spent 35 days personally observing the competition and scouting with his assistant coaches.
He was there because he wasn’t getting his team ready for the Summer Olympics in Tokyo, which were postponed until next year because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Olympics was to be Andonovski’s first major assignment since taking over the program after the U.S. captured the World Cup last year.
“Thanks for reminding me I would be returning from Japan about this time,” Andonovksi said with a smile.
The coach visited his alma mater, Park University, Thursday and spoke about soccer and becoming the recipient of the school’s Distinguished Almunus Award for 2020. Andonovksi is a 2008 graduate of Park.
The summer theme for the national team was adjustment.
“The mindset for us was creativity, making things happen in a different way,” he said. “We’re trying to stay connected to the players as much as possible at different venues. The NWSL tournament was the highlight of the summer for us.”
At the Challenge Cup, Andonovski and his staff focused in on three different groups of players, starting with those already on the national team, like Megan Rapinoe and Becky Sauerbrunn.
“We didn’t evaluate them, we analyzed them,” Andonovksi said. “We were constantly in touch with them, during the tournament, analyzing their game, sending them videos, getting them on Zoom call meetings.”
The other two groups were players with national team potential and possible surprise candidates.
“We were able to attend a lot of practices,” he said. “We saw about 25 games and 50-60 training sessions. We were able to see how coach-able they are, how they’re taking and processing those ideas was very valuable in the evaluating process.”
Still, the staff and team would rather have been in Tokyo, where the U.S. likely would have been the Olympic favorite.
“They were disappointed,” Andonovksi said. “But they’re very well aware of the fact this is something we cannot control. They’re athletes They’re soccer players. They want to be on the field. I want to be on the field. But we understand the safety and health of players and staff is more important.”
Andonovksi doesn’t know when the team will be together next, or the shape of their next competition. He’s hopeful of hosting an in-person team meeting and training camp at some point, and a game after that.
“There are so many uncertainties,” Andonovksi said. “Hopefully they’ll give us the green light soon.”
This story was originally published August 27, 2020 at 3:50 PM.