Women's Head Coach (Contract Pending): Ken McDonald

Coach Ken's Comments:

Coach McDonald was offered the position of Head Coach to the US Men's Deaf Soccer team by former President Christos Nicholas after the 2005 Deaflympics in Australia. At that time he was the Assistant Coach to the Women's team who had just won the gold medal at these Games. Unfortunately, the Men's team had finished a disappointing ninth place.

"My first big challenge was to convince the players of the 2005 squad to return since eighty percent had decided to quit because of how things had turned out in Australia. We managed to get half of the original team back for the first camp in Pensacola, Florida along with a good number of new guys that came to try out for the first time.

It was obvious to everyone that there was a lot of work to be done to turn this team around. The most exciting thing to me was the ability and focus of the senior players and the enthusiasm and work ethic of the new players.

By the end of our second camp in Pensacola, I decided the team should go to England to play the best team in the history of Deaf Soccer, Great Britain. They were the current Deaflympic Gold Medalists and the most respected and feared team in Deaf Sports. They had only lost one game in the last five years, had never tied a game and had never failed to score against their opposition.

The US team arrived in England in June 2007. Our headquarters being the West Midlands town of Walsall. The worst summer weather on record caused havoc to our schedule but we managed to get in two warm up games against Harrisons FC 1-0 win and semi pro club Heath Hayes Town 5-1 loss before traveling to London to take on Coach Philip Gardner's Great Britain team. The whole purpose of this game was to judge how far we had progressed over the last twelve months. The ghosts of Australia needed pushing away for good so everyone could start believing again.

The game turned out better than any of us had hoped. The US team followed the game plan to the letter by not giving the brilliant Great Britain players any time on the ball. Our high pressure game forced them into a long ball tactic which didn't cause our defense any problems. The US actually created more chances but poor finishing resulted with a 0-0 tie. This was a major step forward for the US team. We had taken on the best players in the world and on this day came out their equal.

The next camp in December 2007 had an incredible buzz. The summer trip to England and the result against Great Britain had produced a incredible bond between the players. The senior players had rediscovered their pride and confidence while the new players fed off this energy.

To view more of Coach Ken's comments, click the links below:

• Deaf World Cup Greece 2009
• US Women Deaflympic Taiwan 2009
• US Men Deaflympics Taiwan 2009
• Special Thanks