Vlatko Andonovski has relinquished his head coaching role with the Kansas City Current to shift solely into his role as sporting director, creating a head-coaching vacancy at the NWSL’s top overall team for the 2025 regular season.
In a wider reorganization, Kansas City has also promoted Ryan Dell to general manager, replacing incumbent GM Caitlin Carducci.
Andonovski held the dual role of head coach and sporting director since joining the Current in late 2023 after four years as head coach of the United States women’s national team.
Andonovski told ESPN on Thursday that “we knew all along” that he would shift entirely into the sporting director role, “we just didn’t know when it was going to happen.”
He and majority co-owners Angie and Chris Long began having “more intense conversations” over the summer about making that change after the 2025 season, and the timing felt right with the team’s steady rise to the top of the league.
“I am really passionate about the long-term vision of the organization, which needs my full attention,” Andonovski told ESPN. “I want to make sure that we win now, I want to make sure that we win in 2026 but really want to focus on winning in ’28, ’29 and ’30.
“In order to do that, it’s hard when you’re just focused on winning the next game. This role will allow me to be involved in this long-term success, but also it will allow me to take a step back and focus and strategize on winning in the future.”
Kansas City players and technical staff were informed of the organizational changes via a Zoom call on Thursday, less than a week after the Current’s season came to an early end in an extra-time loss to NJ/NY Gotham FC in the NWSL quarterfinals.
The Current set league records for points (65) and wins (21) this year, finishing 21 points ahead of the second-place Washington Spirit.
In his expanded sporting director role, Andonovski will focus on the Current’s roster of players, including the reserve team, as well as staff and player development.
He will also have some involvement in the Long’s growing multi-club portfolio, which currently includes Danish club HB Koge, although what that oversight looks like specifically is a work in progress.
Andonovski will be part of the hiring committee that will look for a head coach.
The Current’s roster is rich with talent, they are the first (and still only) team in the league with their own stadium built specifically for them, and the Longs have spent hundreds of millions of dollars combined on infrastructure and staffing as the most ambitious club in the league.
The shared vision is clear: to be the best club in the world. The Longs know they can measure that tangibly by winning FIFA’s first Club World Cup in 2028.
“We’ve voiced that to the front office, we’ve voiced that to the technical staff,” Chris Long told ESPN. “Everyone is aligned that that is an achievable goal.”
Kansas City will first have to win the Concacaf W Champions Cup next season to qualify for the global event.
There will be an open search for the coach, but Andonovski conceded that there are two “strong candidates” internally in assistant coaches Milan Ivanovic and Freya Coombe. Ivanovic has been Andonovski’s assistant coach for over a decade, spanning three club teams and the USWNT.
Coombe is a former head coach at two different NWSL teams. Both Coombe and Ivanovic have taken on increased responsibilities since the summer, including leading many player meetings.
The organizational changes also bring a shake-up in the GM role.
Carducci has been replaced and is no longer with the club. She was named full-time GM a year ago to the day on Thursday. She served as interim GM for most of the 2024 season after initially joining the team as director of soccer operations in 2022.
Dell joined the Current last December as the head of soccer operations. He was previously the first general manager in Racing Louisville FC history, and he worked with the USWNT before that in various administrative roles, including during Andonovski’s tenure as head coach.
“The amount of value he has added since joining our organization is staggering,” Chris Long told ESPN about Dell. “He’s had the Midas touch, from building the Teal Rising Cup to all the stuff he’s done with the youth, Kansas City Current II, to the fact that he’s got relationships globally on the agent front, the player front. We really felt that he was the right person as we do this staffing exercise for the long term, his background is what we needed most in that spot.”
Angie Long added: “Ryan gets things done more than any employee that we’ve had.”
The Longs stressed that the growth of the Current and the evolving global landscape as reasons for the organizational changes, including having a dedicated sporting director.
They and co-owners Brittany and Patrick Mahomes will hire two employees under Dell to expand the department. A head of player development role will also be created under Andonovski. Angie Long called it a “continuation of momentum,” and both the Longs echoed Andonovski by calling his move to sporting director a promotion.
They said this was the long-term plan and that they wanted him on board as coach for the 2024 season after the team’s struggles and turnover in 2023, when the Current finished second from bottom.
“He’s won everywhere he’s gone,” Chris Long said. “We wanted him to make winning a habit.”
Whoever takes the head coaching job will report to Andonovski, the coach with the second-most NWSL wins to date and one who admits that he will likely jump into training sessions from time to time.
His tenure with the USWNT was from late 2019 through the 2023 World Cup. Andonovski has won two NWSL Championships and two coach of the year awards.
He is nominated for the league’s coaching award again this season. Whether this is the end of his time coaching on the sidelines is to be determined.
“I don’t want to say no, but I’m also passionate about developing players and developing the team, developing the staff,” Andonovski told ESPN.
“I want my staff and people I’ve worked with to become successful coaches. These are things I’m very passionate about and want to be able to execute.”
