Tom Sermanni. Former Women’s Australian National Team Leader and San Jose Assistant To Head Power in 2003 New York Power general manager Susan Marenoff announced today that Tom Sermanni, former women’s Australian National Team coach as the team’s new head coach for the 2003 season. Sermanni most recently spent the past two seasons as an assistant with the San Jose CyberRays. Besides helping to coach the Cyberrays to a championship in 2001, Sermanni joins the Power with a wealth of international soccer experience. “Tom brings with him an abundance of international and domestic soccer experience and has had success on many different levels, “ said Marenoff. “We look forward to him leading this team in the right direction, and that is back to the playoffs.” Sermanni coached the Australian women's national team from 1994 through 1996 with a record of 13-16-3. His 1995 team qualified for and played in the 1995 Women's World Cup in Sweden. Prior to joining the CyberRays in 2000, Sermanni coached the Canberra (Australia) Cosmos of the men's National Soccer League. “I am delighted to be given this opportunity by the Power to become a head coach in the WUSA and in New York especially,” said Sermanni. “I look forward to the challenges in the season ahead.” A native of Scotland, he played for Albion and Dunfermline in that country and for Blackpool and Torquay United in the English league. After retiring as a player, Sermanni spent two years as coach of San Frecce Hiroshima in Japan. In 1992 he coached Sydney Olympic in Australia and also spent two years as a coach at the Australian Institute of Sport. Born in Glasgow, Scotland in 1954, he is married to Alison Sermanni, both are dual citizens of England and Australia.
You guys better be cool to Tommy! He's honestly one of the coolest coaches I've met. Fair warning - his accent takes some getting used to.. I miss him already.. lol I'll always be his fave 'trouble maker' i hope
well losing happens...wish the matildas were totaly invincible and no one can beat us, hahah but tom is a fantastic coach, you guys are lucky. hope he can take the power to many heights GO AUSSIE!!!
quote: Sermanni will assess his squad during the league's fall camps in October, then decide who's coming back, who's not, and what the Power needs to look for overseas. Chinese goalkeeper Gao Hong likely won't be retained -- who can afford a foreign goalkeeper in the WUSA? -- and Finnish forward Minna Mustonen also may be expendable. (end quote) This part makes me really sad. I'm a big fan of Gao's. This was not a good year for her, but frankly it certainly was not all her fault. Her defense sucked. There were a couple of games where Webber was terrific, but they still lost. I talked to her briefly after the last home game and asked her if she would be back and she said she really wanted to but "it was up to God." I told her I'd say my prayers for her, as I really wanted to see her back and back in form. If this ends up being true, well, it's one more reason for me to not to be overly excited about next season. First Gro and now Gao, sigh... Unless Sermanni totally turns them around... and yet I'll still miss my favorite player and wish she was part of it. Norma
With regards to Gao Hong and whether or not she will be back..... There has been speculation elsewhere on these boards that the Chinese soccer federation may hold back all their Chinese players next season in order to prep for the 2003 WWC. Will this come to fruition or not...who knows? Guess we'll just have to wait and see for the next couple of months. What do you do with Webber?
Pray for retirement. Actually, she did have some great games but the defensive help wasnt really there. If we got Solo somehow and mayybe Wagner(yea rite i kno), I'd bet they would fight over the spot, maybe another Moore-Webber episode in which Webber loses. I really dont know though. It allll depends who we get in the draft. Until then its up in the air.