The Utah Royals removed the interim tag from Jimmy Coenraets’ title on Thursday, signing their new permanent head coach through the 2027 season. Coenraets has led the team since the end of June following the dismissal of inaugural head coach Amy Rodriguez and a reorganization.
While the Royals are in 10th place and eliminated from playoff contention, Coenraets, with the addition of some key players, has coached the team to five wins, two draws, and only three losses. Crucially, they have scored goals at a much higher rate — 23 and counting across all competitions compared to the seven to start the season under Rodriguez.
“I think the interim tag was special,” Coenraets told The Athletic on Wednesday ahead of the official announcement. As he put it, any time you get a job, you want to do it to the best of your ability. “But interim, it gives an extra dimension to what you’re doing. You want to build, but you also have the sense that you want to prove something.”
He joined the team as an assistant coach on June 7, along with performance analyst Sam Lismont, both inbound from OH Leuven in Belgium. Coenraets, 29, had turned the Belgium team around from last place into one of the Belgium Pro League’s top teams and won the league’s manager of the year award for 2021-22.
He spoke of the differences between his time in Belgium and in the NWSL. He said that Utah was “everything I always envisioned that I wanted to have back in Belgium.” The standards are set and push the players and coaching staff alike.
But before his first month had come to a close, he was handed the reins of the Royals on an interim basis.
Coenraets said that negotiations for him to take the permanent job began a few weeks ago and starting those discussions allowed him to start thinking more long-term. The bigger picture finally being in his domain is “the most important part” of his new appointment. As interim, he wasn’t sure who would still be with the team from a player or coaching staff perspective for 2025. As head coach, he’s now able to grapple with what the Royals should look like by 2027.
“I have a Master’s in strategy from (a university in) Belgium and that’s one of my strengths,” he said. “What do we have to do at the end of 2024, what do we have to do in 2025 in order to achieve those 2027 goals?”
In the short term, though, Coenraets was handed the mission of turning another team around; this time from a dismal start of 2-11-2 and 14th in the table. He pointed to many smaller fixes that helped right the ship during the back half of the season, even as they missed the playoffs. Those small things even drill down to punctuality, with players showing up for the team’s bus five minutes ahead of their scheduled time.
“In terms of things that we really had an impact on: training ground mentality, setting firm rules on being on time, team activities. Breakfast isn’t a window anymore; breakfast is a mandatory element, where everyone eats together, everyone comes together, no phones. All of those elements contribute to the bigger team feeling,” he said.
The team also worked on conditioning through double sessions, especially during the Olympic break during the Summer Cup. Coenraets called it their “second preseason.”
“Repetitive, qualitative actions on the ball are defined by your volume and how much you’re able to do those actions straight after each other, and I think that was the biggest impact we had so far,” pointing to his performance analyst’s influence as well. “Every Monday or Tuesday, we have a very good analysis of, ‘This is what we want to look like. These are the rules and this is where we are right now. Let’s define every small step that we have to take to get to where we want to be in a few months.’”
The players get their feedback, they train in Coenraets’ principles of play, and those basics helped turn the season around and have put them on track for a better 2025. But first, there’s Thursday’s announcement and one final match at home against Gotham FC following the international break.
Coenraets is settling into Utah life already. On Wednesday night, he was heading to his first NBA game, taking in the Utah Jazz’s home opener against the Memphis Grizzlies. He has his season pass to a local ski resort locked in, too, ready for some snowboarding this winter.
But if there was a theme across all of his answers, it was just the delight of being tasked with bigger work ahead and shaping the future of Utah Royals FC.
“What can we do with more?” he asked. “That makes me happy, knowing that we will get even better next season.”
(Top photo: Christopher Creveling / Imagn Images)
