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U.S. national team legend Michelle Akers, who won World Cups in 1991 and 1999, has long felt she had something to offer up-and-coming players. She’s firmly in the conversation for the greatest players in the history of USWNT, and it wasn’t just down to her natural physical prowess and technical skills alone; her relentless work ethic and unwavering mentality become her most influential weapons. She learned, as a player on the USWNT, how to become a winner.
Yet over the years, she’s asked to get involved in U.S. Soccer’s youth programs only to receive a lukewarm reception, and she moved onto a post-career life beyond coaching. Feeling like her expertise wasn’t wanted by many of the people who made the decisions to hire coaches, she focused on a nonprofit horse rescue she founded.
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Over the past few months, she started preparing for a move from Georgia to Oregon, where she planned to continue her work with horses. Then, one day in early December, Akers got an unexpected call from a former USWNT teammate. It was Amanda Cromwell, who had just left UCLA to take a role as the head coach of the Orlando Pride in the National Women’s Soccer League.
“How about you come coach with me in Orlando?” Cromwell asked. Akers had to think it through, but it didn’t take long to say yes.
“I couldn’t say no. It was too fun, too good to turn down,” Akers told ESPN by phone from Florida on Tuesday. “We canceled all our plans and came down here.”
Some of Akers’ belongings are still stuck in transit, having already been shipped to Oregon for her now-canceled move, but the initial hassle is worth the assistant coaching job, she said. This is a role Akers has waited a long time for: a role that draws upon her experience as, at one…
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Source : espn
