KC Current
KC Current Players have Strong Reaction to Vlatko’s Departure
“Are you kidding me,” exclaimed Hailie Mace while Michelle Cooper called out the team for not including Vlatko’s accolades in their press release.
On the Labor Day holiday, the Kansas City Current announced the mutual termination of their contract with Global Sporting Director Vlatko Andonovski. It was shocking. Probably not as shocking as when Vlatko took a promotion to be an executive instead of the coach after the record breaking 2025 NWSL season. But stunning nonetheless.
What was even more of a surprise, is how the KC Current handled Vlatko’s departure. They buried the announcement off their homepage and put out a mere four sentences. It’s so short, it’s included below.
The Kansas City Current announced today that it has mutually parted ways with Sporting Director Vlatko Andonovski.
Both parties determined that Andonovski’s requested transition from coaching into the Sporting Director role at the end of last season was not the right fit.
Andonovski joined the KC Current’s technical staff as head coach for the 2024 season and then sought the move to Sporting Director in November 2025.
The Kansas City Current wishes Andonovski well in his future endeavors.
No mention of the complete turnaround he provided the team when he joined as coach in 2024. He took a team with a losing record, coming off an awful season and made them into a juggernaut. A team that would win the league in almost every year in the league’s history but finished fourth that year.
Then in 2025 he led the team to the best single regular season in the history of the National Women’s Soccer League. While whoever approved the press release didn’t take notice, Michelle Cooper and players from the past and present of the Current sure did. “Have to include his historic 2025 season since the press release missed it,” proclaimed Cooper.
As her post said, the KC Current set several NWSL records during the regular season, including:
- Points (65)
- Wins (21)
- Consecutive wins (9)
- Home wins (11)
- Road wins (9)
- Shutouts (16)
- Consecutive shutouts (9)
- Consecutive shutout minutes (869)
- Shutouts at home (8)
- Multi-goal games (18)
- Multi-goal wins (15)
- Fewest goals conceded (13)
- Fewest minutes trailing (109)
Lo LaBonta added, “You set the standard for staff and players. The records we broke are now the expectations for this club and we could not have accomplished any of that without you. To be your captain was an absolute honor, and I speak for the locker room when I say we are forever grateful to have had you as a coach.”
Below are other images off Instagram from present and former players, including Hailie Mace, Alana Cook, Claire Hutton, Katie Scott, Vanessa DiBernardo and Kayla Sharples.
Scott alluded to “whatever team gets you next” and Mace left an ominous “#iykyk” aka if you know you know at the end.
[Click to enlarge any image. Credit to the respective player’s Instagram accounts.]
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In a world where so many men in positions of power within women’s sports seem to end up with baggage or worse, it’s (a) nice to see one get so many accolades from players and (b) all the more bewildering to see the apparent mistreatment of him by management. True WTF.