New KC Current coach Chris Armas hopes to build on club’s past success. Here’s how

Chris Armas sat between Kansas City Current co-owner Angie Long and global sporting director Vlatko Andonovski in a room full of teal, cameras and smiles.

For more than 30 minutes Thursday afternoon, Armas, Andonovski, Long and husband/co-owner Chris Long fielded questions about Armas’ appointment as head coach of KC’s National Women’s Soccer League franchise.

Armas, 53, arrives with some question marks, as his last coaching job in the women’s game was more than a decade ago. But his preferred style of play might look fairly familiar.

Armas said that early conversations with Andonovski — the Current’s head coach through last season — showed they have much in common when it comes to tactics, terminology and how they view the game.

“When I watched the team play, I thought, ‘Wow … like in my dreams,’” Armas said of the roster he inherits. “They have the ball, they can score every time. And every time they lose it, they get it back. This is the type of football I dream about these days.”

Armas spoke Thursday about such characteristics as intensity, “verticality” and a pressing style of play. These things might resonate for those who saw Armas compete as a player — he ran his legs off every game, hunting the ball in the midfield like a terrier.

More recently, as he became a coach, he adopted the Red Bull soccer “style,” a globally integrated way of playing that’s apparent across all Red Bull clubs (Germany, Austria, New York and Brazil). Armas thrived in that system, finding most of his success as manager of the MLS Red Bulls from 2018-20 (he was a NYRB assistant coach from 2015-18).

Armas brought this style of play to each of his coaching stops. The formation is similar to how the Current have typically set up, too, in a base 4-2-4 without the ball.

In an interview with The Star, Armas went deeper into his tactics, revealing just how similar they are to Andonovski’s with the Current. Armas rattled off the variety of formations used by his Colorado Rapids teams — he was head coach there through last season, after which he and the team agreed to part ways.

He said his new club’s formation will look one way when in possession of the ball and another when not. He said the look will change based on how a given opponent chooses to build up.

He also talked about how the Current can build up. KC’s played with a back four defensively, but in possession the Current built out of the back with three players. The Current would “tilt” the formation so one fullback pushed high while the other pinched in more centrally with the center backs. This created a “back three” from which to build, adding another player to the Current’s attack.

Armas accomplished this in Colorado thanks to a high-motor left-back (Sam Vines) and the presence of a player like Reggie Cannon, who could play both center- and right-back.

If this, too, sounds familiar, it’s exactly how the Current have deployed Izzy Rodriguez and Hailie Mace.

“Oh, Izzy Rodriguez, she likes to get forward, let’s not hold her back,” Armas said, recalling his thoughts while watching film from KC’s 2025 season. “Is our right fullback going to be one that stays home a little bit?”

He asked the question rhetorically, pondering the Current’s roster and potential solutions.

“I think (my tactical style) is going to translate in a very seamless way,” he said, “with little nuances of how we do things in and out of possession.”

Stylistic fit is one thing, but there’s a another element in Armas’ favor: The Current returns all but two key starters from a team that not only set an NWSL record for fewest goals-against in a season, but also most shutouts.

The same vaunted attack will be back, too: Debinha, Michelle Cooper and Temwa Chawinga.

Armas spoke highly of the team’s culture and of Chawinga’s long, lung-bursting recovery runs to track down balls. As for the former, the KC locker room is known to be tight-knit. Led by team captain Lo LaBonta, the Current seems to strike the right balance between work and play.

Armas might not yet know much about the player pool within the women’s game, but a KC front office featuring Andonovski and general manager Ryan Dell — not to mention the Current coaching staff that remains after working for Andonovski — brings plenty of knowledge to fill in the gaps.

In other words, it is quite possible that Armas couldn’t have landed in a better spot than the Current. After a sour end to the 2025 seasons for both Armas and his new club, each is hungry to get back to the top.

“I want to deliver,” Armas said. “If everyone’s hungry, I’m starving. This is who I am. I want to win, and win decisively in this next step. And I have some really good pieces around (me) and up (above me). And honestly, the best thing is that locker room.”

Daniel Sperry covers soccer for The Star. He can be reached at sperry.danielkc@gmail.com.