Casey Stone was fired by San Diego Wave FC during his club’s 7-game winless streak
Casey Stoney is no longer the coach of the San Diego Wave FC in the NWSL as the team sits in ninth place in the league with a record of 3-5-6.
“We are immensely grateful to Casey for her commitment to our club and her positive impact on and off the field,” said Jill Ellis, president of San Diego Wave FC, in a statement. “Over the past few seasons, Casey has led us to important milestones and her contributions have been critical in establishing a strong foundation upon which we can build. The decision to part ways was very difficult and was not made hastily, but given the ambitions of this club and the current state of our season, we felt a change was necessary at this time.”
The Wave are winless in their last seven games (0-2-5) and have only two wins since the end of March.
The firing of Stoney, who was hired in 2021 as the club’s first head coach and led the Wave to the 2023 NWSL Shield and 2024 Challenge Cup, came two days after the Wave’s 0-0 draw with the Houston Dash. After the game, Stoney criticized the NWSL for its schedule, calling its three-game away tour of Houston, Washington DC and New Jersey in temperatures above 90 degrees Fahrenheit “unacceptable.”
“I think it’s extremely unfair to the players,” Stoney said Saturday. “I think it’s unacceptable in the interest of the players to ask us to go to Washington and (Gotham) and then come to Houston in June, two days after we play the last game. From a scheduling perspective, that shouldn’t happen.”
Over the past two seasons, NWSL teams have had schedule changes, with each team playing at least one game during the week and one game on the weekend.
Stoney, the 2022 NWSL Coach of the Year, added that she felt her team was being “punished” because the Wave beat NY/NJ Gotham in the Challenge Cup in March, forcing the regular season game to be postponed until last Wednesday in New Jersey.
“There’s no reason,” she said. “Because in this league we don’t work proactively, if I’m honest.”
The club and Stoney agreed to a contract extension in January that would have kept her in San Diego through the 2027 NWSL season, with a mutual option for 2028.
Paul Buckle, who served as an assistant with the Wave in 2022, was named interim coach.
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