How Matt Potter created a winning culture with Kansas City Current in less than a year

The Kansas City Current have been the surprise of the National Women’s Soccer League this season.

After finishing dead-last in 2021, there was nowhere to go but up.

The players knew they needed someone who’d bring structure and routine. That was top of mind when they were approached by ownership about helping to identify a successor to former coach Huw Williams.

The quest ended with Matt Potter.

“He came into that interview with a bit of confidence and a knowledge about the game that was impressive to us,” captain Desiree Scott told The Star. “He definitely had his plan and his principles in place.

“He just seemed very organized and passionate about the game, which I think was what a lot of us players were hungry for: that structure and someone who wanted to just come in with a plan of how we can succeed.”

Succeed is an understatement. With three matches left, the Current (9-5-5) are in first place by a point and have an opportunity to carry that position into the NWSL playoffs. They went 113 days between losses until Wednesday night’s 4-0 defeat at Chicago, and they did it after going 0-4-1 in their first five regular-season league matches.

That dismal five-game stretch to open the season can be explained in part by injuries and a major COVID-19 outbreak. The Current responded with a gritty but not so pretty 1-0 win over Louisville on Memorial Day ... and then didn’t lose again until this week.

It wasn’t all rosy, of course, but they overcame deficits on the scoreboard multiple times during their 13-match streak.

Something had changed — something that likely couldn’t have changed without the right personnel on the field and the right person leading them from the sidelines.

General manager Camile Levin Ashton, also hired this year, said she knew of Potter when she was playing college soccer at Stanford and Potter was coaching at Washington State University.

“What I understood then, and understand now to be even more true, is Matt is an incredible person, an incredible teacher and leader, and he really cares about doing things the right way,” Levin Ashton said. “I think that has been very apparent as we’ve had the opportunity to work together over the last several months.”

Potter stressed “culture” in just about every interview he gave during his first couple of months on the job. Questions about formations and tactics were answered with phrases like “building an identity.”

It was clear from the start that Potter, whose extensive coaching resume includes experience at the national level, believes in creating an environment where those around him can thrive.

“One of the things I’m very conscious of is that everybody has to play their part,” he said. “How do you do that? You build an environment.

“If you build an environment, then it’s about clarity and understanding what it is we’re asking people to do. It’s about connecting on a human level, and then it’s about committing to that.”

It started at the team’s month-long spring training camp at IMG Academy in Florida.

“When you spend a month together with any group of people, you all get a lot closer,” Current defender Kristen Edmonds said.

Edmonds described the team’s time in Florida as demanding physically but also very satisfying. She said she and her teammates were able to get balanced and mentally prepared for the season to come.

“There were days where I was like, ‘I can’t take another step,’” she recalled with a laugh. “It was so hard, but so enjoyable.”

The blend of on-field work and team-building during downtime prepared the Current well for the preseason and the NWSL Challenge Cup that followed. KC’s first preseason match was a 6-0 blowout of the defending league champion Washington Spirit.

“They (Potter and his coaching staff) did a really good job of just giving us a little bit of bait, and we were all asking for more, and more, and more,” Edmonds said. “He’s like, ‘There’s a method to my madness. Just trust me.’ And we had to trust him, but obviously, as we’re playing games and it’s working, we’re like, ‘OK — it’s working!’”

Tactically speaking, the Current are built around the individual skill-sets Potter now has at his disposal and how they best mesh together. They play mainly out of a 3-5-2 alignment, but that can change multiple times over the course of a given match.

“He’s not gonna say, ‘Oh I need a left back,’ and put somebody there that maybe isn’t comfortable,” Edmonds said. “He’ll be like, ‘What do I have? I actually have more midfielders, so let’s just take a (defender) off and put in another midfielder.’ He just thinks that way.”

Mid-game adjustments are not uncommon. During a summertime match against OL Reign, Potter used a water break to tinker with the Current’s setup. Despite being up 1-0 on an early Lo LaBonta penalty, the Reign had been pummeling the Current for 20 minutes straight.

During the water break, Potter tweaked the positioning of one of the Current’s midfielders, and Kansas City went on to dominate the final 60 minutes of the match, seldom letting the Reign out of their own defensive half.

As team captain, Scott helps implement Potter’s adjustments on the field. She said the coach presents useful in-match information in order to augment such in-game shifts.

“I think we have confidence in Matt to find those moments when maybe there’s a lull in how we’re playing,” Scott said. “Obviously, he has that coach’s eye to see that.”

All NWSL teams must deal with adversity, from difficult travel to injuries. But through it all, Potter, in his first year as head coach of a pro franchise, has demonstrated an ability to keep this club moving in the right direction.

Thirteen games unbeaten ... a team doesn’t get there, or go from worst to first, without some luck. But the Current’s ascension isn’t happenstance.

This is a team that has flourished in the culture that Potter’s helped instill. And with the postseason approaching quickly now, the work is not over.

“I know there’s a lot still to play for,” said Levin Ashton, the team’s GM. “But I think what he’s done this year … he’s really done an incredible job.

“(He) has brought the best out of a lot of individual players, and has also done a really good job of bringing all those pieces together to start building a winning culture in Kansas City.”

This story was originally published September 15, 2022 at 1:20 PM with the headline "How Matt Potter created a winning culture with Kansas City Current in less than a year."