This week we look at news concerning Laura Harvey, the former Arsenal head coach, who left the Utah Royals of NWSL to take charge of the U.S. U-20 national team.
We also look at some new NWSL signings of Americans from Swedish and English sides, American college international players signing with European clubs as well as some franchise news for United Women's Soccer, the summer amateur league in North America.
Laura Harvey Leaves the NWSL for a U.S. National Team Head Coaching Position.
Laura Harvey, the Coventry, England native and former English League player and manager, left the Utah Royals earlier this month to join the U.S. women's national team as their U-20 national team head coach. She has been a head coach for every season of the NWSL, working for the first five years as coach and general manager for the Seattle Reign—leading them to the NWSL Shield (Regular Season Champions) and to NWSL Championship Game runner-up finishes in 2014 and 2015, both times losing to now U.S. full national team coach Vlatko Andonovski's FC Kansas City squad. While FC KC moved to Utah ahead of the 2018 season, Harvey stepped down from her Seattle role to explore national team opportunities in the U.S. and England, while recommending Andonovksi to replace her with the Reign. She then shortly was hired to lead the new Salt Lake City franchise, which resulted in the two coaches essentially swapping clubs in a round-about way.
Harvey said upon accepting her new U.S. Soccer position, "I'm really excited and happy to come on board with U.S. Soccer. I'm looking forward to what the immediate future holds and I'm ready to get to work with the most talented young players in the country. Getting back to coaching international football has been something I've been interested in and to be involved with this new generation of National Team players is going to be a great challenge and responsibility. I have enjoyed my time in the NWSL and thanks to the league, I'm in this position, so I want to sincerely thank the Utah Royals and specifically our owner Dell Loy Hansen. I'm very grateful to the Utah Royals and the Reign FC for giving me the chance to live my dream and coach in the United States. Now, working with U.S. Soccer will be extremely rewarding for me. There's a lot of work to do in the short time before qualifying, so I'm looking forward to getting on the field with the players."
Harvey will head up all aspects of the U-20 WNT program while also overseeing the integration and programming of the U-18 and U-19 National Teams, in order to maximize the evaluation and movement of players between age groups for training camps and matches during the World Cup cycle. Harvey has been involved with U.S. Soccer before, as a scout for the U-17 women's national team and as a head coach and assistant coach for the U-23 women's national side. As the head coach, she took the U-23s to the annual La Manga Tournament in Spain in 2017.
Harvey (39) appeared for Wolverhampton Wanderers and Birmingham City during her playing days in the FA Women's Premier League. A knee injury ended her playing career, and she began coaching in 2002, first for Birmingham City as an assistant for four years and then as head coach from 2006 to 2008. She then moved to Arsenal and had a highly successful run from 2008 to 2012, ending her stint with three consecutive FA WSL titles, two Continental Cup wins and one FA Women's Cup triumph. She also reached the semifinals of the UEFA Women's Champions League on two occasions. At the national team level, she was the head coach of the England U-15 Girls' National Team and U-23 Women's National Team and an assistant for England's U-23 WNT, U-19 WNT and U-17 WNT sides.
This is an important hire for U.S. Soccer and a good opportunity for U.S. Soccer to straighten out the U.S. national youth teams performance at senior events, which has been lagging behind previous years' performances. At the U-19/U-20 FIFA Women's World Cup, the Americans won 3 of the first 6 tournaments, but finished fourth in 2016 in Papua New Guinea and did not make it out of the group stage in 2018 in France. Harvey held a 26 player camp in mid-January in Florida and then will select 20 players for the CONCACAF Regional U-20 Women's World cup qualifying tournament from February 15 to March 1 in the Dominican Republic. The FIFA Finals will be held jointly in CONCACAF member nations Costa Rica and Panama in August 2020. Harvey is very highly thought of in league circles and will bring a high performance culture and strong integrity to her new position.
Off-Season Player Signings
NWSL
A few NWSL sides are signing Americans with international club experience to contracts, which just emphasizes that a viable route into the NWSL is for players to go abroad and then hoped to be signed in a few years, something which Washington Spirit head coach Richie Burke said was a definite strategy of his for 2020 to sign these players and a path he would recommend to American players to follow in general. Burke said about his recent signing forward Jessie Scarpa, "We had Jess in to train last summer and really wanted to sign her then… the impression Jess made on our staff was sufficient enough for us to closely monitor her progress when she subsequently went to play in Sweden, and the success Jess enjoyed playing professionally overseas only served to confirm that we believe she will be a great addition to our squad for the 2020 NWSL campaign." Scarpa played at the University of North Carolina, with the U.S. at the 2016 U-20 Women's World Cup in Papua New Guinea, and this past season with Lidkoping in the Swedish Elitettan, or second division.
The Utah Royals signed American defender Taylor Leach, who played four seasons in Europe, including almost three years with Kopparberg/Goteborg FC in the Damallsvenskan (6 goals, 3 assists in 86 matches). Additionally, she helped the club qualify for their first UEFA Women's Champions League berth in over five years. Prior to that, Leach spent a season with Östersunds DFF in the Swedish second division Elitettan where she scored two goals in 14 matches. In 2016 she began her European professional career with Sunnanå SK in the Swedish second tier Elitettan, during which she added two goals in 13 games played as the team was relegated to the Division 1 (third tier) of Swedish women's football. She played collegiately at the University of South Carolina.
The Washington Spirit added American defender Brooke Hendrix, who played two seasons at West Ham United in England, including playing in the FA Cup final in 2019. Before moving to West Ham, Hendrix anchored the defense for Serie A Women's side Brescia in Italy. The defender earned 23 caps during the 2017-18 season, scoring two goals and adding two assists. That was the season that Brescia finished in second-place in the league by tying champion Juventus on points but falling short of the title after a playoff penalty shoot-out. Hendrix also played for with Scottish Women's Premier League club Rangers in Scotland, Swiss Nationalliga A side FC Staad and Úrvalsdeild Kvenna outfit Fylkir FC in Iceland. Hendrix also played for the Atlanta Silverbacks in the Women's Premier Soccer League club in 2016, helping the squad win the Southeast Division title. Collegiately, Hendrix played for the University of Southern Mississippi.
Europe
A few top U.S. college players who were internationals for their native countries signed with teams abroad. Florida State and Venezuelan international Deyna Castellanos signed with three-time reigning Spanish league champion Atletico Madrid ahead of the 2020 NWSL College Draft. Tribal Football.com talked to her last fall during her last season at Florida State (https://www.tribalfootball.com/articles/the-week-in-women-s-football-exclusive-interview-with-world-class-venezuela-international-deyna-castellanos-4297000) and she was clear that Europe was her focus for her professional career. She is expected to play in the UEFA Women's Champions League quarterfinal tie against Barcelona at the end of March, who they trail this season in Spain's Primera Iberdrola by 7 points (43 points vs. 36 points after 15 matches), and include top international players including Dutch 2019 WWC goalkeeper Sari van Veenendaal, Leicy Santos of Colombia, England's Toni Duggan, Mexico's Charlyn Corral and Ludmila of Brazil. Castellanos played in her new club's 1-0 home win over 12th place (out of 16 sides) Sporting de Huelva (where English Goalkeeper Chelsea Ashurst starts) on January 11. Castellanos led Florida State University to the 2018 NCAA Division I title and was a star for Venezuela at the Under-17 World Cup in 2014 and 2016, scoring an all-time high of 11 goals over the two competitions.
Another high profile move from U.S. college soccer to Europe was English national team pool goalkeeper Sandy MacIver, who played at Clemson in South Carolina and is joining Everton on an 18-month contract. The 21-year-old was with the senior English national team for last summer's friendlies against Belgium and Norway but did not see game action. She is a current English U-21 international and a veteran of their youth teams. She won the Golden Glove at the FIFA U-20 Women's World Cup in 2018 in France as England finished with the Bronze medal. She formerly played at Everton before going to the States, as well as spending a year with Manchester City. She will join an Everton squad with fellow English youth international goalkeeper Kirstie Levell (who has been at the club since 2015) and Finnish international goalkeeper Tinja-Riikka Korpela (who played for Valerenga of Norway and previously with Bayern Munich and now defunct Tyreso of Sweden) for the starting job.
German youth international Vivien Bell, who played collegiately at the University of Connecticut, has signed with Napoli Femminile of the Italian Serie B (second division); her new club is currently in second place with 21 points after 10 games and two points behind the San Marino Academy, with the top two advancing to Serie A for 2020-21.In two seasons for the Huskies, she appeared in 32 matches (seven goals, seven assists) as well as a stint with the Connecticut Fusion in the United Women's Soccer amateur summer league in the U.S. in 2019, where she had 2 goals and 2 assists in 8 games. Beil spent her first two seasons of college at the University of Maine and was part of the German roster at the 2012 FIFA Under-17 Women's World Cup.
USW Franchise News
In the summer amateur United Women's Soccer (UWS) offseason news, Grand Rapids Football Club and Midwest United FC will collaborate during the 2020 season for the West Michigan soccer community. GRFC will focus time and resources exclusively on the men's team that will compete in USL League Two (third division of U.S. Soccer's men's structure) while Midwest United FC will assume ownership of the Women's team who are part of the Midwest Conference of the UWS. The GRFC Women have been one of the most successful women's teams in the country, winning two UWS Midwest titles and a UWS National Championship (2017) in three seasons of competition. Midwest United FC is the largest and most successful youth club in West Michigan, and the only U.S. Soccer Development Academy program in Western Michigan.
A brand new Michigan team has joined the league for 2020—the Muskegon Risers—which will result in a new two-division format for the growing Midwest Conference. Muskegon will compete in the UWS Midwest alongside defending conference champion Indiana Union and AFC Ann Arbor, Detroit City FC, Detroit Sun, Grand Rapids FC/Midwest United, Lansing United and Michigan Legends. The move is credited to an overwhelmingly positive community and player response to the women's team—which launched as an independent operation during Summer 2019—in addition to the desire for UWS to deliberately expand its footprint within the state of Michigan.
The addition of the Risers creates an eight-team conference split into two divisions: East and West. Muskegon will be in the West Division with Indiana, Lansing and Grand Rapids/Midwest United and will play a home-and-home series against each team. One crossover game will be played against the East Division, which will be comprised of AFC Ann Arbor, Detroit City FC, Detroit Sun and Michigan Legends.
The Muskegon Risers organization was established in January 2014 to help facilitate positive social and economic change along the Muskegon Lakeshore through the game of soccer. A 'Riser' is someone who understands the community's potential and who pushes themselves and others to realize that potential. Inspired by the Muskegon, Together Rising' sculpture that stands in the heart of downtown Muskegon, Risers are not limited to an era, industry or ethnicity.
Muskegon fields a men's outdoor team (National Premier Soccer League) and arena team (Major Arena Soccer League II) alongside their women's outdoor and arena teams. All home outdoor games are played at historic Monsignor Kehren Stadium and all arena (indoor) games in downtown Muskegon's L.C. Walker Arena.
Another new UWS franchise for 2020 is Brooklyn City FC. who are going to join the East Conference The club will led by Kim Wyant in their inaugural campaign, who is the current men's head coach at New York University and formerly of the Long Island Lady Riders and New York Athletic Club. Wyant is also a former member of the United States Women's National Team (1985-93). Joining her staff will be NYU women's head coach Michele Canning and NYU assistant coach Scott Waddell.
Brooklyn City F.C. President Jesse DeLorenzo said, "From our inception (in 2017), launching a women's first team has been a top priority. After evaluating available options, it was clear that UWS shares our genuine commitment to raising the standard for women's soccer, to providing a professional environment for competitive female players, and offering a compelling match experience for our club supporters and the Brooklyn community as a whole. We could not be more eager to hit the field next summer."
Brooklyn City F.C. provides youth and adult club teams to the Brooklyn soccer community. The club is rapidly expanding on the youth side with 14 teams, over 200 players (50% girls), while also fielding both women's and men's amateur teams. The women's first team will create a pinnacle within the club's female player development path, with a stated goal of eventually promoting top Brooklyn City F.C. youth players up into the UWS squad.
Tim Grainey is a contributor to Tribal Football. His latest book Beyond Bend it Like Beckham on the global game of women's football. Get your copy today.
Follow Tim on Twitter: @TimGrainey
