Seattle Reign's new front office ready to put club back on path to trophies

Around this time last year, Seattle Reign General Manager Lesle Gallimore was optimistic that the team’s fortunes would soon be changing. After losing free agents Rose Lavelle, Emily Sonnett, and Angelina, the sale of the Reign felt like it was coming close to an end. Despite being warned that sales like this can take a long time, Gallimore hoped the page would turn before the season kicked off. The details were so close to being settled.

One year later, however, the Reign GM admits in a conversation with Ride of the Valkyries that the completion of the sale, which ultimately extended until June, had a significant impact on her, the players, and the staff.

“It was hard. It was. I’m not talking about personally, just for me. It was difficult in my role, but it was difficult for everyone. Difficult for the players, difficult for the coaching staff, difficult for the support staff. And there was no way around it. It was just not an easy place to be.”

Despite that, Gallimore praised the players for competing and carrying themselves so well. There was even a moment toward the latter half of the season when the Reign were riding a seven-game unbeaten streak and pushing for a playoff spot, although they stumbled again and ended the season a disappointed 13th out of 14 teams.

“I was so impressed with the player group, and I can tell you from the inside – being around them on a daily basis, they still found a way to move forward. They never quit, and they always showed up professionally to the training grounds and to the clubhouse and put their best foot forward for the badge.”

This offseason, Gallimore and the new front office have had ample time to reflect on what went wrong in 2024 and look ahead to plan and build for the future. It wasn’t difficult for everyone to agree on what went wrong.

“Our reflection was, as simply stated: it wasn’t good enough from anyone in the organization,” Gallimore shared. “I think Adrian [Hanauer] and Maya [Mendoza-Exstrom], as our owner and our chief business officer, both were saying, ‘You know, we didn’t show up quickly enough to do some things that maybe could have made a difference right away. There were things that we could have done for [the team] that would have helped them and supported them better from a staffing perspective.’ And I think that for me, it was maybe looking too far down the road and not being in it with everybody when they needed me as much as they did.”

While the Reign gave fans some hope in August, once it was clear the team would not make the playoffs, the Reign GM and ownership group focused on how they could reset their standards of excellence and become more additive in the future — “whether it be the roster, moves, staff additions, resources, how we look at those, how we plan our preseason, all of it. We’ve looked at every single thing. There were so many places where we fell short that we just have to be better, and we will be.”

Naturally, when performances fall short, it’s easy to wonder if a fresh coaching perspective can improve things. Several NWSL clubs have made that decision over the last couple of years. Gallimore admits there was little discussion about bringing in a new coach to replace Laura Harvey. Instead, the club focused more on improving their support of the coaching staff.

“It wasn’t as much of a big discussion, to be fair, as it was around keeping Laura or letting Laura go, or Laura looking other places, and there were other clubs looking at Laura and other opportunities that came up for her. But I think the bigger piece was just grace for everyone and saying, ‘How do we help each other be better? How do we support Laura being better? How do we support the roster to be better? How do we support the first team staff?’”

Part of that meant expanding the coaching and support staff, and the new front office has been busy trying to accomplish this. In addition to their goalkeeper coach and two assistants, the Reign will add a third assistant coach – with interviews currently taking place. They’ve already brought in a vice president of soccer operations and added a full-time security director, a full-time video analyst (their previous analyst was part-time and remote), another performance coach, and a data scientist. They are backfilling two positions on the medical team.

Roster building for 2025 and beyond

The other part of supporting the coaching staff involves roster improvements. Upon completion of the sale and during the summer transfer window, the Reign made several moves to add immediate and long-term depth, including U-18 signings Jordyn Bugg and Ainsley McCammon, Haiti national team captain Nérilia Mondésir, veteran defender Hanna Glas, and forward Ana-Maria Crnogorčević.

Following those signings, Gallimore and the front office have been looking for players this offseason who can bring more speed to the attack and help the team score and prevent more goals. As Ride of the Valkyries highlighted, the Reign had the fewest fast-break opportunities since 2021 last season. Meanwhile, the NWSL has only become more transitional.

“We were looking at all areas, but we were just trying to get more athletic, faster, being able to stretch teams more. So you’ll see additions there,” Gallimore told Ride of the Valkyries right before the Reign announced the signing of college players Maddie Dahlien and Emily Mason.

“These signings should be ones that people look at and understand that there’s two sides of the ball and two sides of the game that we’re trying to be better at – and that’s conceding goals and getting goals. And I think the players that we’re signing help on both sides of that.”

The Reign GM also pointed to the signing of defender Madison Curry as an example of a player that fits this mold. “She showed in her rookie season [at ACFC] that she’s capable of playing central and wide on the left, and has a really good defensive presence and good athletic ability and a competitive way about her.”

Arguably, the club’s most significant move this offseason came when the Reign traded for Lynn Williams, the NWSL’s all-time leading scorer and one of the best defensive pressing forwards in the league. Williams ticked two critical boxes for Gallimore: the ability to stretch defenses and finish in front of the goal. But trading for Williams also came with a cost that confused Reign fans, as the club sent Jaelin Howell – a midfielder the Reign just acquired in August – to Gotham in exchange for Williams and veteran goalkeeper Cassie Miller.

Gallimore notes that the conversations with Gotham and all the players involved were really transparent. Howell wasn’t a player the Reign wanted to lose, but it’s hard to say no when a player like Williams becomes available. Howell had also stated publicly that Gotham was a place she wanted to end up, and she was amenable to the move, which made the decision a little easier.

“It was hard to say goodbye to her because I just really value Jaelin as a human and as a player, and that was a great opportunity to have her in our club. But to add the NWSL’s leading scorer and a person like Lynn, and then a goalkeeper with the character and ability that Cassie Miller has ... it just ticked some boxes for us to be honest. When you look at our team, that was one of the places where we felt, you know, we have to shore things up, and we have to be more dangerous in front of the goal. And it just was a place where we couldn’t not do it.”

On paper, losing Howell and seeing Quinn depart in free agency means the club is a little light on holding midfield options. Gallimore says the team is confident in its current players but a box-to-box or holding midfielder is probably the role they’re still most intently considering.

“We feel pretty secure in the options we have right now, and at the same time, it’s probably the place – either 6 or 8 – that if we’re still looking, that would be the role that we were we’re looking for—a versatile midfielder who can either be a box-to-box or holding midfielder. And then, we also have to plan for the future. Ji [So-yun]’s in the last year of her contract. Jess [Fishlock] is on a one-year. These are veteran players that, whether it’s now or down the road soon, we have to plan for their departure. So the midfield is one where we have a ton of talent, but we have to have more depth there, for not just now but moving forward.”

As Gallimore noted, the Reign indeed have some good options to slot into the holding midfield role, although some questions remain. Those options include Wales captain Angharad James-Turner, who lost playing time later in the 2024 season and struggled with consistency; 17-year-old McCammon, who just got called into the USWNT Futures Camp but still has limited NWSL experience; and homegrown midfielder Olivia Van der Jagt, who looked poised to take on a bigger role in 2024 before missing the second half of the season with an excused absence. Fishlock and Sam Meza, who is back with the club after getting significant minutes on loan to Dallas Trinity in the USL Super League, can also play deeper.

While Gallimore feels much more prepared and supported this offseason, the elimination of the draft and the start of the league’s complete free agency has been an adventure for her and every other club in the league. The Reign had eight players become free agents this offseason, and just last week, the club shared that five of these free agents wouldn’t be signing new offers in Seattle. While those decisions were all difficult for Gallimore, since each player has been “a part of our family,” the team was focused on what they needed to get back on a path to lifting trophies and “being a top five club in the world.”

“It’s always difficult to lose someone from your roster that you value and that has been a big contributor on the field and in the locker room, and that other players are attached to and that we’re attached to. As a club, we had to just look back at where we were, what place we finished, and what our ultimate goal is.”

The Reign aren’t entirely done making moves, but they are close. While the news is not official, there’s a good chance that Lauren Barnes and Maddie Mercado will return to the club, with details likely announced next week before preseason training begins. The Reign also plan to bring some college players into camp, as the club still needs to sign a third goalkeeper.

While Meza’s loan is over and she’s back in Seattle, the Reign are examining whether they should extend Lily Woodham’s loan to Crystal Palace to give the Welsh defender more minutes ahead of the Euros this summer. That would also provide the Reign additional roster flexibility and ensure that, for now, the team doesn’t need to secure another international roster spot immediately after sending a spot to Gotham. However, Gallimore did note that the club is working to secure green cards for a few players.

Gallimore kept her description of the team's offseason moves pretty simple when summarizing them. “We’ve just tried to really hone in on our needs and make our team better, and to really dive into who’s out there that we think can do that for us.”

A committed ownership group

While Gallimore knew the new ownership group well before the transition was official – from her days as the coach of the University of Washington and one of the most connected people in Seattle soccer – she’s been impressed but not surprised by how quickly the Reign and Sounders have become integrated.

“It’s been very, very productive, but I expected this because I’m a Seattleite, and I know Maya and I know Adrian. They care. With Maya and Adrian in particular, and the rest of Sounders hybrid staff that we’re using in the enterprise between both clubs, it has been so much work from everyone to combine the groups and make us feel like two clubs under one umbrella. They’ve just been so present and so active with us in setting the tone for what the expectation is, what the culture needs to be like, how they can help enhance the culture, and also leaning on Laura and myself for our expertise.”

According to Gallimore, the new owners have spent time getting feedback from players, every staff member on the first team, and everyone in the front office.

“It’s been just so much intentional and productive people work in the offseason, and even in the six months that they’ve been owners. It’s clear that they care and that the expectations are that we’re going to be community impactors. We’re going to unite people through the game. And we’re going to be a club that this city is really, really proud of, that is recognized nationally and globally. We have big, huge goals to be the best, and that’s such a fun thing to be a part of every day.”

The Reign report to preseason on January 15 and have several scrimmages lined up to help the team prepare for the regular season, which kicks off on March 14. In addition to participating in a preseason tournament in Coachella in mid-February, the Reign will scrimmage against Spokane Zephyr as the USL Super League club kicks off the second half of their season. They’ll also play another Community Shield match against the University of Washington in March. While this will be Gallimore’s second preseason with the club, she is excited about how different this one will be for the staff and all of the players.

“We’ve talked a lot as a staff about how we don’t slow roll, but we just consistently feed information about our standards of excellence and the way this club is going to roll, and how we’re turning the page, and that this is a new era for Reign. It’s really exciting to have players who have been in this club for a long time be able to see this moment, and I think they’re going to be more than pleasantly surprised at the direction of the club and excited to be a part of it in this era. It’s already palpable. The investment that’s being made in the club and our players, you know, it’s what they deserve.”