The Chicago Stars have hired former United States women’s national team coach Vlatko Andonovski as the team’s new chief soccer officer, beating out several other NWSL teams to secure Andonovski after his recent shocking departure from the Kansas City Current.
“I get excited with projects, and Chicago will very much be a project,” Andonovski told ESPN.
Andonovski, who is one of the most successful coaches in NWSL history, will be the highest-ranking employee on Chicago’s technical staff, which has been gutted in recent months. He recently became available after he and the Kansas City Current announced a mutual termination of his contract on Sept. 7, which removed him from his role as sporting director.
The hire is a coup for a Chicago team that sits in last place in the NWSL standings and could finish there for the second straight season. The Stars are set to break several league-worst records this year, including their own from 2025 for most goals allowed. Andonovski said he believes that by “next year, we’re competing.”
His next tasks are appointing a technical director and head coach. Andonovski said he is simultaneously working on improving the roster for 2027.
Chicago has been without a fulltime general manager since firing Richard Feuz in May. Martin Sjögren was then fired as head coach in August.
Chicago Stars president Karen Leetzow previously worked with Andonovski when their time at U.S. Soccer overlapped. Leetzow told ESPN that she noticed “people were leaving [Kansas City], and no one understood why. But we were gonna not let that talent go untapped if we could get them to come to Chicago.”
So Leetzow “started noodling a strategy” of hiring other top professionals who happened to have connections to Andonovski, not knowing if he would ever be available. The Stars hired Kate Cohen as interim technical consultant and Garga Caserta as interim director of high performance. Each had previously worked in similar roles with Kansas City until recently. Each also worked with Andonovski when he was the USWNT head coach.
“This is exactly how you do this,” Leetzow told ESPN. “You build all the people that the best would want to work with, and then they want to come and work with you.”
Multiple sources have told ESPN in recent weeks that Kansas City assistant coach Milan Ivanovic, who has been an assistant to Andonovski in multiple jobs for over decade, has been a candidate for various head coach openings in the NWSL this season, including in Chicago.
Andonovski declined to discuss specific candidates and said he will need to confirm the coach, but he added that “every club that is looking for a coach would be happy to have Milan.”
Andonovski said he spoke with six different NWSL teams about similar roles and a few of those were serious conversations. One club, he said, was adamant that he should coach again — he won NWSL Championships in 2014 and 2015 — but he said he takes joy in building a club’s identity.
He had been in Europe for nearly a month when Kansas City announced his departure. Cameras caught Andonovski sitting with senior USWNT head coach Emma Hayes at the U20 World Cup last week in Poland.
Andonovski said he recently flew home for a few days to meet with teams and look them in the eyes to discuss their openings in person.
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He said Chicago stood out for several reasons. Any roster with forwards Mallory Swanson and Jordyn Huitema, midfielder Julia Grosso, and defender Sam Staab, has potential, Andonovski said.
Then there was the previous history of success and playoff appearances for the franchise in its days as the Red Stars, a frequent foe of his as a coach. And the Chicagoland area itself, home to a large community of ex-Yugoslavians (his birthplace), and a frequent stop for family.
Above all, however, Andonovski said he was drawn to the approach of Stars majority owner Laura Ricketts. The two met in person when Andonovski returned from Europe last week.
“She was a big reason why I chose Chicago,” Andonovski said. “In fact, five minutes into our conversation, I wanted to get off the chair, give her a hug, and say, ‘I want to work for you.’
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“She started sharing her story and what she values, and it was very aligned with what I value. She talked about integrity, respect, empathy, taking care of people. That is very much what I value as well.”
Mutual trust is a key tenant of Andonovski’s approach — and it is hard to build in a league that has been rife with misconduct in past years, as Kansas City Current captain Lo’eau LaBonta said last week.
Andonovski’s departure from Kansas City, where his family has lived for most of the past two decades (his family will continue to reside in Kansas City, he said) came as a surprise to outsiders and prompted current and ex-Kansas City players to voice support for their former coach on social media last week.
The Current announced that the club and Andonovski agreed that his sporting director role “was not the right fit.” He held the sporting director and head coach roles in 2024 and 2025, and led the Current to the NWSL Shield last year while breaking league records for points, wins and goals scored. Andonvski ceded the coaching role last November.
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He said that he is genuinely thankful to Current owners Angie and Chris Long for the opportunity and support during his time with the franchise.
“Those are two years that I will never forget, and probably two of my best years in professional soccer,” Andonovski said, adding that he “will dearly miss” the players and the staff in Kansas City. He said he is rooting for the Current to win the NWSL Championship, and that he knows he will have had something to do with that.
Leetzow also stressed that Andonovski brings trust and respect that the Stars have lacked. She is aware of the public perception around the Stars’ failures as a franchise — “we’ve got to own it until we can make it better” — and said that the hiring of Andonovski is a major signal of change and stability.
“I know that what Vlatko brings is a level of trust, that we can trust who he is because we’ve known him,” Leetzow told ESPN. “We know who he is. I think players know what he brings, which are high standards, and I think his team brings something that we didn’t feel like we had, which was a level of transparency around what they’re doing and why they’re doing it, that the rest of management can buy in and then support them in a way that we didn’t have previously.”
