The Big Interview: Juan Carlos Amorós
Now an NWSL champion, ahead of the new season the NJ/NY Gotham head coach discusses his journey form bottom to top, how he turned things around at Gotham, and his bold recruitment for 2024...
Juan Carlos Amorós can still remember the specific date he drove all the way from Scotland, where he’d been playing for third division side Edinburgh City, to London with his girlfriend to start a new life after hanging up his boots.
It was 27th June, 2010.
Why can he be so specific?
“When was the Frank Lampard goal? When he hit the crossbar against Germany and it didn’t get awarded? That’s the day I moved. I was driving the van down from Scotland and I was listening to the game on the radio.”
Amorós is incredibly proud of his journey. He tells of walking around London at 7:30pm with his “bag of balls and portable goalposts”, coaching any team he could, all the way down to grassroots level at Bedhead Football Club.
He describes it as “crazy” when reflecting on the fact he’s been coaching as of this year for 25 years, yet he’s just 39 years old.
Yes, that does he mean he first started coaching when he was just 14.
But he’s adamant he wouldn’t be where he is now had it not been for the stresses, strains and sacrifices of a journey which took him from his Spanish homeland to the Netherlands, USA and Scotland, before he came to England.
Where now is specifically is an NWSL champion, having led NJ/NY Gotham to the one of the biggest domestic titles in the women’s game at the end of 2023.
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As we speak, he’s in Colombia with his squad for a pre-season tournament ahead of the 2024 campaign kicking off in a couple of weeks, where his champions will face NWSL Shield winners San Diego Wave in the Challenge Cup.
Has time away since the end of last year therefore offered him a chance to reflect? Not just on his success, but his whole 25-year journey, from carrying his kit around London to the pinnacle of the sport?
“To be fair, it sounds crazy, but since I left Tottenham…the last four years I had very little time to reflect,” he admits. “The time between Tottenham and Betis was super quick and then I left Betis quickly for Houston and from Houston I jumped straight into Gotham. This is the first time I had time to stop and reflect and look back, to enjoy it, but also look at how we can be better this year.
“If you are at the top of the mountain, the only way is down, so we’ve worked really hard this off-season to make sure what we can control will be better, starting with our recruitment, our playing style, how we operate as a staff with the players, lots of little details to ensure things are running smoothly. It’s been a different pre-season because half the team is in the CONCACAF Gold Cup right now, but definitely yes, it was a much-needed chance to reflect and think about how we can be better.”
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