April 6, 2014, the U.S. Soccer WNT twitter account revealed news that Coach Tom Sermanni was relieved of his coaching duties. A few hours after the big win against China, Sermanni was told the bad news. Sermanni had been coaching the U.S. Women’s Soccer team for a year and a half now, but this seemed out of the blue for most. Some came to conclusions that the team had him fired, but Abby Wambach, women’s world player of the year in 2012, rejected that rumor by admitting the team had no say in this. Wambach, as well as U.S. goalkeeper Hope Solo, said that they feel some blame by coming in seventh place in the Algarve Cup, and “failing” Sermanni. If that was the reason though, people question why they didn’t just fire him right after that. The U.S. Soccer President says, “We want to thank Tom for his service over the past year and half, but we felt that we needed to go in a different direction at this time.”
Many don’t believe that Sermanni should be released with his duties as coach, but Alex Morgan, player on the U.S. team, comments on her observations that she doesn’t think some of his strategies are working for the team. The changes in the lineup was what the team said threw them off the most. Compared to the previous coaches, Sermanni just wasn’t pulling the weight of the team. The big concern now is how the U.S. team is going to perform at the 2015 World Cup. With a new coach on the way, will they be able to get enough training in?