Sermanni was hired Tuesday to replace Sundhage, who led the Americans
to back-to-back Olympic gold medals and their first World Cup final in
12 years. Sermanni has spent the last eight years as Australia's coach,
taking the Matildas to the quarterfinals of the last two Women's World
Cups.
"He has the knowledge, experience and vision to take
on the challenge of keeping our team at the top of the world,'' U.S.
Soccer Federation president Sunil Gulati said in a statement. "He has a
tremendous passion for the game, knows the American players, understands
our system and knows the process of preparing a team for a World Cup
tournament.''
Sermanni, a 58-year-old originally from
Glasgow, Scotland, has spent much of the last 20 years in Australia,
where he is credited with transforming the Matildas into one of the
world's top programs. In addition to their quarterfinal appearances at
the 2007 and 2011 World Cups, the young Australians won the 2010 Asian
Women's Cup. Their runner-up finish at the same tournament in 2006
earned Sermanni Asian Football Confederation coach of the year honors.
Sermanni was selected after a five-person search committee, which
included Mia Hamm, considered more than 30 candidates. The current U.S.
players said they didn't care whether the new coach was male or female,
American or foreign-born, so long as the right coach was selected.
"Someone who's good enough, that's all I care about,'' Abby Wambach said. "Be the person who brings the World Cup back.''
Sundhage
was 91-6-10 in her five years with the Americans, including a 23-1-1
record this year, and the U.S. was ranked No. 1 in the world for most of
her tenure. She resigned Sept. 1 to return to her native Sweden, where
she is now the women's national team coach.
"We need a
strong person to come in and add to the history that this team,
specifically, has created in the last two years,'' Wambach said. "...
This team is scary good, and we need to have someone who can put all the
Xs and Os together.''
