Becki Tweed didn't bother celebrating when she got the news she'd been named Angel City's new head coach. As excited as she is to be staying with the club, for her, the work is just getting started.
'Head down, still working,' she says when asked how she's spent the last few days. 'I think that's who I am and who I will always be. I'm grateful and proud, but I still have a lot to learn about myself and a ton of space to grow. I just want to move forward and grow as a person and as a coach and get into winning.'
Just a few weeks after making history with Angel City by leading the team to its first playoff appearance, Tweed is already looking ahead to preseason next year.
'We've built a platform and we've shown each other what we're capable of,' she says. 'We've set a standard and now we have to move the needle a little bit more and raise that standard. And I think that's exciting. Every single person, player, staff member, feels like the work is not done.'
Tweed also demurs when asked about being named to the shortlist for Coach of the Year. She gives just as much credit to Assistant Coach Eleri Earnshaw, Goalkeeping Coach Dan Ball, and Technical Assistant Coach Mykell Bates—as well as the medical, training, and operations staff who make everything possible.
'For me it needs to be coaching staff of the year and it needs to be a much bigger picture than one person,' says Tweed. 'Ultimately one person becomes responsible for it, but it's always a group effort. This team wouldn't be successful without a coaching staff, and I think that is really important for people to remember and to know.
'What we've achieved as a staff and how close we have become and how much we challenge each other and hold each other accountable, it's always collective effort.'
That collective effort is what was behind the dramatic midseason turnaround after Tweed took over as interim head coach in June. Languishing in second-to-last place following a five-game winless streak and having earned an overall record of 2–6–3, Angel City's first game under Tweed marked an eight-game undefeated stretch. The team had the best record in the league over the second half of the season and jumped five spots in the table to make the playoffs.
To make that happen, Tweed and her staff implemented a new culture of competitiveness around the team, where every rep in training counted and every player knew that a good performance during the week could earn them playing time on the weekend. To help players prepare for the physicality of the NWSL, the coaches added elements of contact to training drills.
Tweed's new job title comes with new responsibilities. 'I think obviously now there's room for a little bit more planning,' she says. 'My job now is about what the entirety of next season will look like. What can we get out of preseason, what standards can we set, and how can we continue to move forward using that preseason time and space to grow?'
Jumping in midseason shaped how she approached the job. 'With a lot of the season [already] gone and being in an interim role and in the position that we were in,' she says, 'it became a lot about game to game and how we were going to go one game at a time and get a result.'
At the same time, she says the basic philosophy that served the team so well during their tight playoff race doesn't change. 'We played every single game for 12 games like it was a playoff game,' she says. 'We had no room for error. We had no room for drop in points. And actually I think it's done us a world of good.'
That mindset is key because long-range strategizing, especially in the NWSL, only gets a team so far. 'The season is long and you can't plan for a huge part of it, because you never know,' Tweed says. 'Your plans are not going to go to plan, but you can count on the things that you know are a constant and that's preseason—being able to use that time to build on a standard, to build on a culture.'
For Tweed, the ultimate goal next season is self-evident. 'You don't need to sit in a room of people and say that our goal is to win the championship,' she says. 'If you've got the culture, you walk into the room and you know, without speaking.'
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