Vlatko Andonovski has a recurring joke about when he was hired as the Kansas City Current’s head coach.
He describes meeting Current players a few months after resigning from the U.S. Women’s National Team, with the Current having finished 11th out of 12 teams in 2023, and saying: “You had a crappy year? I did too.” He came to the Current after enduring a crisis of faith after the fallout from the USWNT’s round of 16 exit at the Women’s World Cup.
But Andonovski isn’t the only coach to land in Kansas City nursing a broken heart.
Assistant coach Freya Coombe was fired from her previous post as head coach of Angel City FC in the middle of the 2023 season. That year, ACFC had a rough start and was struggling to compete.
“It’s no secret it was very tough,” Coombe said on Friday, two days before the Current’s NWSL semifinal playoff game against the Orlando Pride. “Not being able to complete a season there and getting fired midway through the season, that was tough, and for me it was like, ‘OK, can I get back to a point where this is fun?’”
That question closely mirrors the one Andonovski asked himself after the World Cup — “Do I really love this game anymore?”
Judging from how much Coombe and Andonovski talk about having fun in 2024, the answer for both is a resounding “yes.”
“There are elements of being an assistant coach where you don’t have the same level of pressure as a head coach,” Coombe said. “You don’t have to make those tough decisions. You don’t have to make those tough calls, whether it’s player selection, whether it’s tactics. So I think there’s an element of that which does make it a little easier, but I think the environment that has been created at Kansas City definitely helps that.”
It would be hard not to have fun on a team that’s been as dominant as the Current in 2024, which can’t be discussed outside of the context of the team’s poor season the year before. There’s a euphoria to seeing a loser make a big swing and swiftly ascend the ranks, just four points off the league-leading Pride in the regular season standings. The Current tied the Pride for best goal differential at +26, a huge leap from eking out a -6 goal differential last year.
It helps to have a record-setting goalscorer on your team, too. Temwa Chawinga has been a question few opponents have managed to answer. Though it’s certainly possible (see: the Washington Spirit’s 4-1 rout of the Current in August), it’s difficult to accomplish.
“She’s so technically gifted,” said Coombe. “She sees the field so well, her awareness of space and pressure and time is absolutely fantastic, and I can’t wait to see what she can deliver next year.”
On the other end of the field is KC’s defense which, while not as stingy as Orlando’s, has still done an admirable job amid several personnel changes, including their starting goalkeeper, with Almuth Schult replacing Current stalwart A.D. Franch in late August. The team also made changes to both center backs, acquiring the rights to Alana Cook in July and Kayla Sharples in August.
After fully integrating Cook, Sharples and Schult into the starting lineup, the Current went from conceding 1.5 goals per game to 0.3, including its quarterfinal playoff game against the North Carolina Courage.
Coombe hesitated to say Sunday’s match might be a game of defense versus defense, with both teams looking towards their talismanic goalscorers and their ability to transition — KC with Chawinga and Orlando with Barbra Banda and Marta. She did, however, acknowledge the Pride’s defense, calling it “incredible this year”.
She was much more open to singing the praises of Current midfielder Vanessa DiBernardo, who has had such a good season that it demonstrates the magnitude of Chawinga’s performance to eclipse what DiBernardo has been to this Current side.
“She can play anywhere in the midfield,” Coombe said. “I think that’s just a credit to her, and her ability to see space, find space. Her timing is impeccable, her touches are brilliant, and she’s got such a great football brain, and then great technical ability to go with it. And I’ve been so impressed with her this year.
“I’ve always known that she’s a great player within the league, but I think that this has been some of her best soccer that she’s played, and it’s a credit to her and how hard she works.”
DiBernardo can get high and score, she can cross from wide, and she knows how to place a well-weighted ball from long range right into a goalscorer’s path. Her heads-up play, being able to quickly release Chawinga, is by no means her only tool, but it’s a vital one for the Current — especially against a hard-nosed defense.
Coombe also credited DiBernardo’s communication with the coaching staff, although that’s been a two-way street. If DiBernardo’s decision-making ability has been top-notch this season, it’s partially due to being given the freedom to make decisions.
“I think Vlatko makes sure that everything is very, very clear to the players in terms of how we want to play,” said Coombe. “And I think that one thing that’s so great about how he coaches, and (assistant coach Milan Ivanovic) coaches as well is that they’ll recognize there’s different ways to get there. But it’s very clear this is what we’re trying to achieve, and then there is an element of freedom for the player to find a way to get to where we want to go.”
As for Coombe herself, it seems KC suits her.
“It’s the most fun I think I’ve ever had in a football environment, whilst at the same time maintaining such a professional environment for not just for players, but for staff as well,” she said.
That’s down to Andonovski’s leadership, she said, from the high-level tactics down to just sitting and eating together every day.
“That’s a credit to the environment where we have a lovely training facility, where we can sit and have breakfast and have lunch,” Coombe said. “But we all sit together, and we often sit there for far longer than we’re eating and just have fun, tell stories. We’ll go on the road, and it’s generally around sitting down together, eating together, planning together. We just have a lot of fun.”
Whatever the team’s result against Orlando, it does feel as though this has been a healing season for Kansas City, at least on the field. It is, after all, a game — and games should be fun.
(Top photo: Brad Smith / Getty Images)
