Photo Credit: Rob Gray-Imagn Images
The Utah Royals are in the National Women’s Soccer League playoffs. It’s a sentence not many expected to say at the start of the season. Head coach Jimmy Coenraets led his team’s turnaround by learning a different way to lead and building a team that believed it belonged.
Coenraets came to Utah with a detailed vision of how the Kings should play. He gave a presentation of around 150 slides covering tactics, game plan and everything he learned while coaching OH Leuven in Belgium, where he planned to turn the struggling team into one of the best sides in the country.
He was initially hired by the Royals as an assistant coach, but was promoted to interim head coach a month later in July 2024. Just 20 days after assuming the mantle of president, he trashed his detailed plan.
A few days before the judgment day, Coenraets sat with the Equalizer, the sun on his face and the blue skies stretching over him. He seemed relaxed, though there was a thoughtful way about how he talked about his team’s accomplishments and the challenges ahead in the playoffs.
The Royals were set to face Gotham FC with a win likely securing their quarter-final hosting rights. They lost 0-2 as Gotham won the historic Shield at home. But Utah had already secured its first playoff berth in franchise history.
“In general, I think everyone is happy,” Coenaerts said, describing the mood at the club. “But I feel there are other feelings in the building as well.”
The next feeling is ambition. Utah was not expected to be anywhere near the playoff spots. At the start of the season, predictions by NWSL experts had them in last or second place. Once in place, these predictions became a source of amusement in the team’s group chats.
For the ambitious coach, the magnitude of the achievement lies in part in the question of what comes next.
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