Former Assistant Ryan to Coach U.S. Women
Greg Ryan was named coach of the U.S. women’s national soccer team Friday, succeeding April Heinrichs, who resigned in February after coaching the team to the gold medal at last summer’s Athens Olympics.
Ryan, 48, had been an assistant to Heinrichs for a year. Before that, he coached women’s college soccer for 15 years, including stints at Wisconsin, Southern Methodist and, most recently, Colorado College.
He had a 185-81-23 record as a college coach and took the Badgers to the NCAA final in 1991, losing to North Carolina in the championship game.
Named interim coach of the U.S. team after Heinrichs stepped down, Ryan led it to the championship of the Algarve Cup in Portugal last month, compiling a 4-0 record and defeating world champion Germany in the final, 1-0.
A native of Dallas and a graduate of SMU, where he earned his degree in biology, Ryan played six seasons in the North American Soccer League from 1979 to 1984.
As national team coach and technical director, Ryan will be in charge of all five U.S. women’s and girls’ national teams.
His primary responsibility, however, will be to prepare the national team for the next Women’s World Cup, in China in 2007, and for the Beijing Olympic Games in 2008.
He takes over a program that has gone 262-50-35 in the 20 years since the founding of the women’s national team, winning world championships in 1991 and 1999 and Olympic gold medals in 1996 and 2004.
“You only take this job if you intend to win,” said Ryan, who is no relation to Mike Ryan, the first women’s national team coach. “You don’t take it for any other reason.”
Ryan, who lives in Colorado Springs, Colo., will spend much of his time at the Home Depot Center, working with the various women’s national teams.
“I think the best advice April gave me was just to be myself and coach the way I want to coach,” he said.
“April has said, and I agree, that she and I are as different as night and day, and that’s partly why we worked well together; we balanced each other.
“In terms of coaching style, I will take a very aggressive approach on the field, in terms of aggressive attacking and aggressive defending. That was the approach that we implemented in the Algarve Cup. I felt like in Portugal, I had a great rapport with the players.”
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*--* USA Women’s National Team Coaches Coach Years Record Highlights Mike Ryan 1985 0-3-1 Assembled the first U.S. team to compete in a tournament in Italy. Anson Dorrance 1986-1994 66-22-5 Architect of the early U.S. success -- including title in first World Cup in 1991 -- and the dominant University of North Carolina program. Tony DiCicco 1994-1999 103-8-8 Moving up from assisting Dorrance, he became the winningest coach in U.S. soccer history, winning the championship of the 1999 Cup in the U.S. Lauren Gregg 2000 2-0-1 With the top U.S. players sitting out because of a dispute with the U.S. Soccer Federation, she coached a second-string team to the Australian Cup title. April Heinrichs 2000-2005 87-17-20 Former great on the ’91 World Cup team, her teams lost in two world championships before she bowed out with a gold medal at the ’04 Olympics. Greg Ryan 2005 4-0-0 Named head coach after delivering the goods as interim coach at the prestigious Algarve Cup, where a post-Mia Hamm era team won the title.
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