![San Diego Wave coach Casey Stoney watches her team from the sidelines.](https://equalizersoccer.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/USATSI_23340933-scaled.jpg)
Picture Copyright Darren Yamashita for USA TODAY Sports activities
San Diego Wave FC introduced Monday that it has parted methods with coach Casey Stoney.
Stoney, San Diego’s inaugural head coach, has been with the membership since July 2021. She entered this season because the Nationwide Ladies’s Soccer League’s longest-tenured coach and amassed a 24-15-18 common season report. She additionally led the Wave to their first two trophies: the 2023 NWSL Protect and the 2024 Problem Cup.
In 2022, the Wave additionally grew to become the primary growth workforce to make the playoffs of their first season as a franchise. Stoney was tabbed as NWSL Coach of the Yr after the marketing campaign and her constant success with the membership ultimately led to a multi-year extension, signed in January 2023, that may maintain her with the Wave by the 2027 season with an possibility for 2028.
Nevertheless, this season has been a troublesome one for San Diego, with the membership going winless in its final seven video games. At present, the workforce sits ninth within the league standings with 15 factors – one spot out of the newly expanded playoffs. By way of 14 matches, Stoney has led the workforce to a 3-6-5 report this season. Their final win got here on Might 8 in opposition to last-place growth workforce Utah Royals FC.
Its newest match led to a 0-0 draw with the Houston Sprint, after which Stoney – historically one of many NWSL’s extra outspoken coaches – lamented the workforce’s three-game street journey being condensed into every week.
“On this league, we don’t work with foresight, if I’m trustworthy,” Stoney mentioned after Saturday’s match. “It’s extraordinarily unfair on gamers. I feel for participant welfare, to ask us to go to Washington away, [Gotham] away, after which come to Houston in June two days after we’ve performed the earlier recreation, it’s unacceptable. Scheduling-wise, it shouldn’t occur.
“Journey is brutal on this league. The circumstances are brutal on this league. This might have been higher. There was no want for this. Simply higher foresight and planning. I don’t assume it’s rocket science to be trustworthy.”
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In a launch, membership president Jill Ellis known as the transfer “mandatory” because the workforce thought of its ambitions and efficiency this season.
“We’re immensely grateful to Casey for her dedication to our membership and the optimistic influence she has had each on and off the pitch,” Ellis mentioned. “Over the previous seasons, Casey has guided us to important milestones, and her contributions have been instrumental in laying a robust basis on which to construct.
“The choice to half methods was very onerous and never made in haste, however given the ambition of this membership, and the place we’re in our season, we felt a change was mandatory presently.”
The transfer away from Stoney comes simply two weeks after the membership employed Camille Ashton as its new common supervisor. Ashton served as GM for the Kansas Metropolis Present, the place she was a part of the acquisition of a lot of key gamers, but in addition drew some criticism over her execution of participant trades.
Paul Buckle will function the membership’s interim head coach. Buckle has beforehand labored as an interim assistant coach through the 2022 season. His most up-to-date head teaching job got here with the Sacramento Republic from 2015 by 2017.
In keeping with the discharge, the membership will now start a “world search” for its subsequent head coach.
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