Winning still key value in Amy Rodriguez's first season in charge of Utah Royals FC
A young team with an average age of just 24, Utah "put together people who have won" ahead of the 2024 season — and that's the goal this year.
Whether speaking of the former U.S. women’s national team forward/World Cup winner/Olympic gold medalist or first-year Utah Royals FC manager or mother of Ryann and Luke, Amy Rodriguez is one thing above all else.
Competitive.
The 36-year-old former national champion at USC won two NWSL titles in 11 pro seasons, Olympic gold in 2008 and 2012, and was a striker on the 2015 Women’s World Cup champion squad has won at every level of the game, even back to her high school days at Santa Margarita Catholic High School.
“Amy’s a winner; I knew that the second she got to USC,” said Utah rookie outside back Zoe Burns, who played for Rodriguez during her brief tenure as an assistant coach at her alma mater. “When she coached us, we had the luxury of getting to train with her and she was the most fantastic example of what a professional player is. I know she’s going to bring what she brought at USC and in her career to coaching us here. We’ve already gotten a glimpse of it, and it’s exactly what I expected.”
Even with a first-year expansion club (with three previous seasons prior to the first-edition Royals moving to Kansas City in 2020) the goal is clear for Rodriguez, the first-time manager and her hand-picked group of young players with an average age of just 24 years old.
“It’s not secret that I wanted to come here and win championships. If you know me, I don’t do anything laissez faire or average; I’m not about baseline,” Rodriguez said. “I’m all about crushing those goals and reaching as far as I can. I’m trying to instill that in this team.
“When we put together the roster, we put together people who have won or wanted to win and knew how to do it. That’s going to be our goal this year.”
That said, Rodriguez is also realistic. She knows where the team is coming — one of two expansion teams in the now-14-team NWSL, built on the foundation of a club that never made the playoffs in its three previous years before moving to Kansas City.
That doesn’t lessen Rodriguez’s expectations. But it does, perhaps, offer perspective for the club as it opens preseason training camp from Herriman to Cancun to a handful of stops in between before the March 16 season opener against the Chicago Red Stars.
“The Royals will always be a work in progress; I’ve told the players that from the beginning,” she said. “We’re an expansion team, and we have to see what players are compatible, what collaborations we can find both on and off the field. I wouldn’t say that our roster is solidified today; we’re going to be a work in progress and continue to refine our little details. And that may include future Royals players.”