“Yes, it’s interesting. It’s a place I’ve never been, coming into a team that’s already fully rostered. Every team, every season, there’s going to be a certain number of changes, but to come into a team where I think there’s two players I’ve worked with in the past is certainly unique. In the past it’s been my team: I built the team, I signed the players. It’s almost similar to the college situation where all the players are there because you brought ’em there. It’s a good challenge for me, and I think it’s a good situation to be in because it’s something different for me, and it’s a way for me to improve as a person and a coach.”



[I think it’s actually three players: Ali Krieger and Joanna Lohman, who played for him both at an amateur level and in WPS, and Tiffany Weimer, who was briefly on the roster during one of the barnstorming years between the WUSA and the W-League.]

I next got onto the topic of the draft, starting with the first two picks, forwards Cheyna Williams of Florida State and Cali Farquharson of Arizona State.

“Going into the draft I thought we’d have to pick between Cheyna and Cali, but to be able to get them both was great. Cheyna, she’s very athletic, she’s one of the few forwards who is constantly trying to get the ball and face up and go to goal. That’s something we really liked about her. There’s obviously a lot of growth in both of them as attacking players, but we’re in a situation where we’ve got a lot of good attacking players already. So I think it’s going to be a really good situation for them to develop in where they’re not in a pressure situation where they have to start and play and contribute right away. If they do, that’s great. I’m sure they expect to. And at some level you want them to, but it’s not like there’s the weight of starting on their shoulders.”

The most notable offseason signing was that of former Wake Forest forward Katie Stengel.

“That was a huge need. When I looked at the roster there wasn’t a true #9 on the roster. Katie’s one of the best 9’s on the American side in the world, and to bring her in I think she’ll be a really good complement to the speed, the athleticism, and the really good soccer brains that we can put around her with Matheson and Banini and Franny and Crystal. There’s some really good attacking elements there that I think she kind of connects all the dots.”

Getting back to the draft, the third round pick was Texas Tech midfielder Alli Murphy.

“Alli’s one of those players that – I’ll quote Tom Stone, her coach, “She’s like a Richie Williams type of player.” For people in this area, that’s someone who’s very hard-working, a ball-winner, and just tenacious and really fit. So I think that’s someone we’re looking at as a good personality, a good mentality type of player.”

The penultimate pick was San Francisco goalkeeper Madalyn Schiffel, who’s decided to play in Norway instead of the NWSL.

“We drafted her because we wanted someone who would challenge the other two goalkeepers we have on the roster. [Her playing in Norway is] a disappointment for us because she certainly would have been a #3, but I think she could have challenged for #2 and pushed the other two.”

The last pick was Duke’s Kara Wilson, who’s been a part of the Washington Spirit Reserves as long as they’ve been the Washington Spirit Reserves.

“We wanted to use the last two picks on local kids, but the way it fell out we were definitely going to use the last one on her. Playing on the reserve team, you want that connection, and you want the players to feel that there’s a true path: you go away and play at college, you come play for the reserves for the summer, you get drafted, and you get an opportunity to make the roster. And I think she’s come a long way, and physically and size-wise she has all the tools. And she comes from a program that’s had a huge amount of success these past few seasons.”

The other notable offseason trade was sending Katherine Reynolds to the Portland Thorns for defender Alyssa Kleiner.

“Kleiner was someone who I think was a reserve in Portland, then she signed a contract halfway through the season or maybe the last couple of months. With Katherine, I have a huge amount of respect for what she’s done as a player, but I think she was kind of playing out of position. I don’t think she’s a left back. I think if she had her preference she’d play right back, and we have a pretty decent national team player who’s a right back. So I don’t foresee having Ali play centrally or in midfield so that Kat can play right back. So Kleiner is a younger version of Katherine, very athletic, willing to work hard, great for the team, and so it was kind of a swap-out: you get a younger version of Katherine, someone who’s probably more of a flank player, can play both flanks like Katherine can but maybe a bit better in her service and a better fit for what we have on the roster. We’re pretty deep in the back.”

We next discussed the roster as a whole and what needs he saw.

“I think our needs have been filled, but I don’t know exactly where everyone is until I see them a week or two weeks into preseason. I think we’re very balanced right now. Bringing Stengel in as a #9, adding some more athleticism were really the only needs. It wasn’t a situation where I thought the roster needed a huge overhaul. In fact, every time I made a trade with a player or released a player, there’s doubt there because you’re affecting team chemistry. The team’s very close to winning a championship. You’ve got to find a way to get by Seattle, which everyone in the league is trying to figure that out. They’re really close, they’ve got great team chemistry, and they had very good results and a very good run. And they have a huge difference-maker, so whenever you make those changes, and there’s always going to be four to six changes in every team, every year, you’re hoping it’s not the one where you screwed up the chemistry.

“A lot of those players who have been moved were those role players who understood, accepted their role and were really great for team chemistry. It’s always hard to move those players, but at the end of the day you’ve always got to try to improve. I felt like there were some redundancies there, so if you look at the players who were moved like an Angela Salem, you’ve got Tori Huster, and you’ve got Joanna Lohman, who are pretty much the same type of player, so you can’t have all three. So you’ve got to pick one, and when other teams come to you and say, ‘We’re interested in this player,’ then you’ve got to make that decision that it’s something that makes sense.”

Since I was at the tryouts, I asked them what they were looking for: filling specific needs or just good players?

“We’re just looking for the top player to two or three that we can invite into preseason to give them an opportunity to compete against the drafted players, the players who are invited into preseason for a roster spot, whether that’s a contract or whether that’s an amateur reserve.

“There’s not always a number on it, there’s always a zone between one to four. And it’s not like we have to find one player. If they’re not there, they’re not there. But I think every year that I’ve been doing these open tryouts the quality has gotten better and better. It used to be where there were maybe one or two players and then a huge gap and then everybody else, not even a good amateur-level player. Now we’re to the point where there were a handful of players. We ended up selecting one player to come into preseason camp, but there were a couple who were very close, and we’ll offer them spots on our reserve teams.”

To me it looked like a madhouse: two dozen players all running around. Do you look at everyone, or are you doing triage early on, picking out players worth paying attention to?

“You can look for a player who sticks out, and you track them early. The way we had it set up, you go through technical exercises, then you go through possession, and then you go into playing. In the technical stuff, I can pick out the handful of players right away who I think are good technically. And that may not translate tactically in the possession, so you have players who naturally whittle themselves down. They’re technical but they’re not athletic, or they don’t have any idea how to play. Where there are other players who aren’t technical but who are at the top of the group athletically, which you start to see in the possession exercise and the games.

“Triage is kind of a good word. They separate themselves, and there’s kind of peaks and valleys. There’s the one player we chose, she had a very steady uptick and was still getting better and better and sticking out more and more. There was another player we really liked technically, really liked her ideas, and then athletically she started to fade away once we started playing, whether it’s fitness level or the fact that she’s not fast or strong or very agile. It’s not a perfect science because there’s always going to be a couple of players – I think I was one of those players as a player trying out – you tend to get overlooked because you don’t stand out a lot. Then there are players who don’t stand out in the other two phases, but then they start playing. I thought you were at the bottom of the pool, but then you start playing, and you’re a gamer. That’s why you try to do exercises or parts of the tryout that all of those areas they’re getting the opportunity to show.”

[He said I’d have to wait for the training camp roster to come out to find out who they picked, as you don’t want other teams knowing which players you like until you’ve got them under your umbrella.]

And of course I had to mention NWSL MVP Crystal Dunn.

I’m excited to have another world-class player to have the chance to manage and learn from and hopefully help her improve as well. She’s a difference-maker, which we didn’t really have in New Jersey, and from everything I’ve heard she’s one of those who’s great to be around and great for the team. Looking forward to getting her out there and putting her in a position where she can continue to get better and to develop. The sky’s the limit, who knows?

He’d mentioned informally that he was happy with the way the 2016 schedule was set up, so I prompted him to cover that on the record.

“The only piece that hasn’t been adjusted is the length of the season, to get more games, and that’s going to cost money so that’s going to take more time. It’s great to see us closer to the FIFA calendar where we’re laying off FIFA dates and taking a big break even though it’s odd to have a 24-day break in the middle of the season. I understand the reasoning, that you’ve got players coming back from a tournament who are going to need the extra rest, and you want to get the most value out of those players who return that you can.

“It used to be you wanted to get the players who were not in the World Cup or the Olympics because you knew you’d have them for the whole season. But now the league has adjusted that to where you want to have those players because they’re going to be there for the majority of the season now.”

He’s on his third pro league now. How do they compare?

“I think the biggest difference for the NWSL is the fact that everyone’s looking at how it’s going to grow rather than can we hold on, can we keep our fingernails on the edge of the table and not have a team fold and the whole league fold. I don’t think that’s even in anyone’s train of thought.

“NWSL has US Soccer behind it, a proper business model. I’m not of the opinion that it should be all MLS teams – I still think it should be a mix – but certainly having the backing and the resources of MLS teams makes a difference.”

Back in the day – and again through all the instantiations of the Freedom – Gabarra’s assistant was Clyde Watson. But this year it’s going to be Denise Reddy, who already has considerable experience as an assistant coach in the US pro leagues. I had just a couple of minutes to talk with her before she had to leave.

“I played at Rutgers University a long time ago. Came out of college, no pro league here so went over to Sweden, played eleven years for Malmö FF, which is FC Rosengård now, came back, been coaching in the WPS for Sky Blue, for Chicago, and now I’ve been coaching back in Europe, in Sweden and Denmark, and I just finished my UEFA Pro license.”

What brings you to the Spirit?

“Jim! No, good organization, good location for me. I’ve been away for fifteen years, so if I wasn’t going to become a head coach, I wanted to be in an organization that was closer to my home, and wanted to definitely be with somebody like Jim who I trust. I know I’m going to grow under him. He knows I don’t want his job, but he does know I want to be a head coach, and I know he’ll help me.”

How do you see your role?

“That’s difficult because that’s something you kind of have to work through. We haven’t really discussed how the roles or going to work, or if it’s going to be specifically you’re this/I’m this. So that’s something that will play out. It will naturally play out.”

Have you had much of a chance to get familiar with the roster? What do you think of it?

“I know the roster. I’m pretty familiar. I’ve been in the league before, coaching. Yeah, it’s a really, really good team. I’m real excited, but I’m probably most excited that everyone I talked to around Washington said it’s great team chemistry and team spirit. That’s what I like. That’s what it’s about.”