Vlatko Andonovski left Skopje in North Macedonia for the United States on an inauspicious whim: to play indoor soccer, of which he knew nothing, in Wichita — about which he knew even less.
Even after being persuaded to make the journey by his childhood friend, Dino Delevski, Andonovski figured he’d be in the USA a few months in 2000 and return home to a more traditional soccer career.
Instead, the adventure proved life-altering. The improbable portal led to becoming a Kansas City treasure of known-by-first-name stature, a U.S. citizen and then ascending into one of the most conspicuous positions in the wide world of sports: coaching the much-celebrated U.S. women’s soccer team.
Not that it’s about him. The position is what deserves the recognition, he’ll tell you, because he’s still Vlatko to us — understated, humble and so connected to his adoptive city that he made time to speak with the hometown paper even amid the pandemonium of readying for a monumental trip.
Not until the defending Super Bowl champion Chiefs open the NFL season on Sept. 7 will there be a local sports figure operating in a more high-profile and pivotal role.
With Vlatko at the helm, the USWNT is seeking an unprecedented third straight FIFA World Cup triumph when it begins play against Vietnam at 8 p.m. Central Time on July 21 in New Zealand.
The competition is being co-hosted by Australia, with the final scheduled for Aug. 20 in Sydney.
“The joy of being in the World Cup, coaching in the World Cup, competing for the biggest prize in the world, that is something that you really just can’t measure,” Vlatko, who took over after the 2019 World Cup, said in a recent phone interview with The Star.
Andonovski’s Kansas City and Wichita roots
As if the team featuring Alex Morgan, Kelley O’Hara and Megan Rapinoe playing in their fourth World Cups isn’t intriguing enough, he gives Kansas City its own compelling rooting interest in their success.
Cool enough that he’s virtually been one of ours since coming to Kansas City in 2001 to play for, and later coach, the indoor Comets after the Wichita Wings folded.
Better yet that his story embodies one of those “how it started/how it’s going” memes.
Vlatko, after all, had never so much as witnessed females playing soccer until he arrived in Wichita as a 24-year-old. He was struck then by what he once called the “brilliant” happenstance of witnessing girls’ youth teams play for the first time, a moment he believes was part of shaping his ultimate trajectory.
Still, he only started in this particular direction a mere 10 years ago, when he became the first coach of the nomadic FC Kansas City in the inaugural season of the National Women’s Soccer League.
Coaching women for the first time, Vlatko was the NWSL coach of the year in 2013 and guided the team to titles in 2014 and 2015. (He also was NWSL coach of the year in 2019 with the Seattle club now known as OL Reign.)
Never mind that the FCKC operation didn’t enjoy quite the commitment that the KC Current has created since its inception in 2020. FCKC played its first season in a high school stadium and its last in Swope Park before effectively folding in 2017.
Driven in 2020 by Angie and Chris Long and Brittany Mahomes (and later joined by her husband, Patrick) the Current commissioned a state-of-the-art $19 million training facility in Riverside completed last year. It also is in the process of building an approximately $117 million ultramodern stadium on the Missouri River at the Berkley Riverfront. The venue is on schedule to open next year.
“You cannot even compare the environments,” Vlatko said.
He’s dazzled by the progress he sees in the stadium, which he recently toured, but perhaps more by the vision it reflects.
“It’s amazing that we, our people, are the ones that are pushing the standards in women’s sports and women’s soccer in particular,” he said. “And moving everything to the next level.”
Speaking of the next level …
That’s the charge of this intense job that he was offered after adding to his resume and reputation as a coach in Seattle.
A challenging World Cup 2023 schedule
Even with his usual upbeat greeting, you could hear the urgency in his voice within seconds on the phone as he almost immediately turned to the task at hand.
Asked how he was doing, he said, “Good, good. Preparing. Preparing for the big one.”
For all the joy in the opportunity, the pressure, he said, “is always there. And the pressure is not going to go away.”
But whatever that might be from the outside looking in, increased as it might be after a bronze medal finish in the Tokyo Olympics and the team last year losing three straight games for the first time since 1993, that’s not what he means.
“It’s the pressure from the inside, you know, that I put on myself to be the best version of myself and prepare the team to be the best that they can be,” he said.
It will need to be just that in a competition that will present a variety of emerging challenges.
For one thing, for all its veteran starpower, 14 of the 23 members of the U.S. team are on the World Cup roster for the first time.
“That was very intentional,” he said. “We wanted to refresh the team a little bit and (have) fresh blood. We wanted to bring players that are just a little more energetic and a little more enthusiastic. But we did not want to lose the experience and the quality from the experienced players.”
Wales match was a USWNT progress report
The most up-to-date view of the work-in-progress dynamics was the victory in a sendoff friendly against Wales last week in California.
The game was a scoreless tie after a first half that featured a lineup that had never played together before. But the U.S. won 2-0 on two goals by 21-year-old Trinity Rodman, a first-time World Cup participant and the daughter of former NBA star Dennis Rodman who entered the game after halftime.
The fresher faces, though, wasn’t the only aspect of the match that was a snapshot of what’s ahead.
At the postgame news conference, Andonovski remarked that they often hear “the world is catching up.”
But the world, he said, “has always been there,” he noted, pointing out that the top 10 or so nations have long been competitive.
For instance, Norway, Germany (twice) and Japan have won World Cups since the women’s debut in 1991; Germany and Canada have won the last two Olympics.
It’s the broader world, though, that has made such strides.
“The 7-0, 8-0 games are gone,” he said.
Noting the improving likes of Wales and Vietnam, among others, he added that the margin for victory has changed, and that this team can’t afford the mentality of taking any game for granted.
All part of the joy and heaviness of trying to seize the World Cup — the last before Kansas City is among the host cities for the 2026 FIFA World Cup men’s edition.
He’s got plenty of other incentive, but it would sure make for a nice trophy for him to show off around here in the run-up to 2026 — a thought he relishes.
“You know how I feel about Kansas City,” he said. “That’s my city, that’s my community. Kansas Citians are my people, and the fact that we are going to be able to experience this in the middle of our city to be part of one of the biggest events in sports is incredible.”
Just like his story already is … with what we can only hope is more ahead in the coming weeks.
