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The Houston Dash rolled out their new leadership team on Wednesday, the club’s latest attempt to become relevant in the NWSL. Pertinency has been difficult to come by in Houston. Ten regular seasons have produced one playoff appearance—a stoppage-time loss—and the trophy won at the 2020 Challenge Cup feels more like a blip than a statement.
Enter Angela Hucles Mangano as the club’s President of Women’s soccer, and Fabrice Gautrat as head coach, and another clean slate is at hand.
“We are bringing a vision to life,” Hucles Mangano said in her opening remarks. “I’ve heard so much about the potential of this club and I see the opportunity in a very short period of time. And now it’s time for some of that potential to be realized.”
Gautrat, an assistant in the league for three seasons in Chicago and North Carolina, said he was drawn to the Dash job by three main factors.
“The leadership. The staff. And the players,” Gautrat, whose wife is Pride midfielder Morgan Gautrat, said. “I think [we] have a very high-potential group that has underperformed. I’m very excited to just be a part of it.”
Hucles Mangano and Gautrat both brought up the word trust multiple times, stressing that the existence of a positive culture is based on that trust.
The Dash’s lifelong struggles aside, their 2024 season is not one that exudeded much positivity. Fran Alonso was brought in as head coach, implemented a system that was ill-fit to his roster, and then went on a mysterious leave of absence at the end of June, never to return. The club won 5 of its 26 games and finished last of 14.
“One of the best and greatest things about sport is that each game, each season, we have a clean slate,” Hucles Mangano, formerly general manager at Angel City FC, said. “It doesn’t matter where you start or finish from. We’ve actually just spent the first portion of our preseason as a staff, collectively getting together, talking about culture building, what type off feedback we want to be able to give and receive [from] one and other. What kind of trust we want to build. There is already a great foundation of culture within this organization so part of that in terms of short and long term goals is to continue to build that culture.”
The memory of last season begs to differ with Hucles Mangano’s assertion that the foundation of culture is already in place. Whether it is or isn’t, a big part of her job will be to portray that to the outside world. Team president Jessica O’Neill introduced Hucles Mangano and Gautrat and said, not for the first time, that she wants Houston to be a destination of choice for players within and beyond NWSL.
Perhaps a small step was taken in that direction last month when Delanie Sheehan signed with the club as a free agent, followed by Yazmeen Ryan being acquired from Gotham for a bucketload of allocation money. Both were integral to Gotham’s 2023 NWSL championship, and Ryan was also a champion the year before that in Portland.
“That’s something that I’m a firm believer in,” Gautrat said. “How do you create an environment where this becomes a destination of choice? Obviously I wasn’t hired when they made the decision, but I think it speaks volumes. We’re really excited to work with them. You guys probably see they’re really good players. But the background on them, they’re great people. We want to definitely add to this culture and what we’re building here.”
As for playing style, Gautrat stuck to the new coach script of offering more generalities than specifics. But he did offer a window into what Dash fans may see at Shell Energy Stadium this summer.
“In this league,” he began, “you have to be very good at every moment of the game. For me in one word, I’d say it’s comprehensive. You have to be very good in every moment and have clear key performance indicators for what they looks like at every moment in the game. For me, yes I want to break lines, but I also want to be positioned really well to prevent those transition moments from happening. Also want to not just high press but prevent the opposition from getting into really important spaces to prevent them from scoring goals. So for me it’s a comprehensive way of creating a game plan to dominate the opposition in each of the moments of the game.”
Gautrat went on to discuss his affinity for data-driven decisions when it comes to finding player combinations. And about the promise of Avery Patterson and the need to get Diana Ordonez into better scoring positions in an effort to rekindle her rookie form of 2022 (11 goals in 12 games; 8 in 43 in two seasons with the Dash).
The roster, as always, will continue to evolve. But Hucles Mangano and Gautrat are firmly committed to the culture. Hucles Mangano was asked about her claim that she found a strong culture when she arrived in the job, and about how the club will go about portraying that to the outside world.
“When I look at some of the movement in the offseason, the staff that are in place right now are very representative of the positive culture of the club in existence, as well as elements of the community. I say that in terms of the care, the welcome that I’ve received personally, and my family. That’s something that is very important to have, being people and person first, and people and person orietnted as part of the culture that has been established. Obviously there is work to be done. Fabrice and I have alluded to some of what that larger plan looks like. But ultimately the group we have right now and the new additions that have come into the club are part of this re-established culture. It’s a very positive one. A very eager group that is ready for the challenge and looking to elevate to the next level.
“We want to make playoffs this year and to be a consistent contender, year over year.”
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