March 06, 2020.

On Thursday afternoon, we attended a special media luncheon hosted by the Washington Spirit at Audi Field. At the event, we had the opportunity to talk one-on-one with head coach Richie Burke and Spirit majority owner Steve Baldwin about the upcoming NWSL season.

Burke gave us insight into the young team that he has assembled for the season and outlined the improvements he would like to make from 2019. He also commented on the decision to split his side’s home games between SoccerPlex, Audi Field, and Segra Field. Lastly, he updated us on Rose Lavelle and Andi Sullivan, who are both with the USWNT at the moment.

As for Baldwin, the Spirit majority owner spoke about his long-term goals with the team, described the reasoning behind the “4-4-4” plan for this year, and discussed the inclusion of young players on the squad.

Richie Burke

Earlier you were talking about how this is a really young team and you guys drafted five new players. What can you tell us about these five new players? Are you excited about anyone in particular?

Yeah, I’m excited about them all. We’ve had them in for a couple of weeks now, so we’ve managed to see them for a couple of weeks of training. Some of them have really taken to it well. Some of them, you know, trying to find their feet, trying to get a bit confident starting their professional career. We think we’ll be able to nurture them and bring them along. Some of them we think are gonna contribute right away and some of them might be peripheral contributors for this first season. But it’s all really about how they take to the game.

Last year you almost made it into the playoffs in your first season at the helm. For this season, what are some things you would like to maintain from last year, and what are some things you would like to improve?

I think we created a good base last year. Rather than changing everything, we’re changing certain things. We’re trying to improve certain things. Not a lot, but restart in particular was not great for us. We didn’t score many goals off restarts. We possessed the ball really, really well, but the X number of goals we created wasn’t as high. These are things that as a staff we’ve thought about and tried to work on. We’ve tried to bring players that will help us in that area as well. So yeah, we created a good base last year, and we created a good methodology. As a new coach and a new team, it was a new culture, a new way, and a new environment for us. I think we’ve established that now. The next piece for us now is to add to that.

So this year you’ll be playing 4 games at Audi Field, 4 games at Segra field in Loudoun County, and 4 games at SoccerPlex. Last year you had the opportunity to play two games here at Audi Field and the stands were packed. How do you think playing at these different venues will impact the team?

If we could get four sellouts here, it would be incredible. The players respond when there’s a full stadium. The players respond when there’s energy from the crowd — every player that’s ever played responds the same. When there’s a big crowd at the stadium you respond well to it, so hopefully that will be the case. I had a little bit of mixed feelings playing at three different venues because the players establish some familiarity with their home field. It’s now gonna be different for us having three different home fields with four games at each venue. But we’ll see how that goes. We’re very familiar with the SoccerPlex, that’s a place we know. We’ve never played at Segra Field before, and it’s an artificial surface, so I’m not a big fan of that. But we were successful here and played well both games here. I’m hoping that we can bang four wins here by just playing that same way.

Would you guys like to move here at some point in the future?

Oh absolutely. I think that’s certainly in our hopes. I think the players would love to play here. Any time that you can play in a stadium of this quality, with a crowd that’s behind you and supporting you, it’s the 12th man. They nudge you further over the line. So yeah, we’d love to be here.

What can you tell us about Rose Lavelle and Andi Sullivan?

I haven’t seen them since they are both away with the national team, but I’ve spoken to them regularly. They’re both excited to get back and play. I’ve watched them and gotten feedback on how they’re doing with the national team. Andi’s had a little bit of a knee issue that she’s working through. Of course Rosie broke her hand during one of the games earlier on in the year, but other than that they’re in a really good place mentally. They’re desperate to play and train with their new teammates, and I can’t wait to integrate them into the team.

How do you think these two very experienced players are going to help the young players that are coming in?

Experience is not the factor sometimes. It’s the character. You can be as experienced as you want, but you need to have the character to help people and the character to help younger players develop. And Rosie and Andi are just fantastic characters, best, best characters. So I don’t see any problems with that at all.

Steve Baldwin

When you first acquired ownership of the Spirit, what were your goals for this team and how do you think you have accomplished those goals so far?

The big objective when we came in was to be the best women’s club in the world. And there’s a lot of things that go into that from a player experience, from a fan experience, that make that happen. And it’s both on the field and off the field in terms of the results that we have.

We made a lot of progress last year and just missed the playoffs by a point or so. We’re gonna be really good this year. On the field we should challenge for the playoffs, and if you get into the playoffs then who knows what happens. Making the playoffs is absolutely a key objective. Winning championships is an objective.

Then off the field we will make as great an impact as we can on the lives of kids. So we do that through a variety of ways. From building relationships with youth clubs to our relationships with charitable organizations and school systems to really connect kids with our players. As we spoke earlier, one of our big focuses is on childhood cancer. Tori Huster sort of led us into that with St. Jude, and Rose Lavelle has also been instrumental in leading us in that direction with local kids.

Earlier at the media meeting you mentioned how the Spirit this year was going to be a young team. How do you think this season will go with a lot of rookies? Will there be an adjustment period?

You know, I’m sure there’s an adjustment time that takes place. One of the things that actually helps us is that since last year we had five rookies that kind of went through it, then now they’re gonna be leaders for the rookies that just came in. So they can kinda show them the ropes a little differently because they most recently just experienced it. It’s fresh in their minds what it takes to be a pro, from on the field, off the field, fitness levels, nutrition, sleeping, you name it. Our group of rookies from last year will be able to impart that on their new teammates.

At the media meeting you also mentioned the 4-4-4 home schedule that you are implementing this year. Four games at Audi Field, four at SoccerPlex, and four at Segra Field. What went behind that decision?

So really you gotta think about it in the context of where you ultimately want to be. The ultimate objective is to play all of our games at Audi Field, but we want to be there when the timing is right — when we know that we can pack it 12 times a year, not just two.

We also thought that we had to further develop the fanbase, particularly in northern Virginia, so that’s a big part of the objective this year with 4-4-4. We also want to continue to deliver to our fan base that’s in Montgomery County and suburban Maryland with our games at SoccerPlex. The nice thing about our fans is that, just as it is our objective to have our players to play at Audi Field full time, it is also our fans’ objective to see our players play at Audi Field full time. And I think they understand why we took this approach of gradually building it up because if you’ve got five thousand fans at Audi Field it’s a completely different experience than if you have a packed house.

I give D.C. United a lot of credit in counseling me from their experience of what they thought would be best to achieve that objective. Andy Bush was absolutely fantastic in guiding me through that decision, so we think we made the right decision for what’s best for the players long-term.

-Pablo Bayona Sapag / Gabriel Bayona Sapag



