Well, it didn’t take until midseason.
But the head coach hiring process went about as far as it could without actually dragging a body into the job with the league actually up and going.
And despite having made an actual hire I’m not convinced we’re really past the “What the..?” stage, because the coaching quality of the new gaffer looks pretty opaque to me.
Meet the new boss; Jan Robert Vilahamn.
Here’s the basics, from his Wiki page:
- Vilahamn played as a scoring central midfielder for several clubs, all in the Swedish leagues, ranging from the top flight (the Allsvenskan) to their Division 3.
- He seems to have had a half cup of coffee with the Swedish juniors, three matches. Didn’t catch on.
- By the late Oughts he was assisting the manager at his final pro club, Ytterby IS.
- His managerial record at Ytterby is mixed. With Vilahamn as player-manager Ytterby got promoted from Division 3 to Division 2 (in 2008) then Division 2 to Division 1 (in 2009) but was immediately relegated in 2010 and then finished 7th in 2011.
- He hung on at Ytterby for another four seasons, as player-coach until 2015 and as manager for that season. Ytterby were dire through that whole period; as the gaffer in 2015 Vilahamn “led” his crew to a second-from-bottom finish.
- Vilahamn knocked around a bit after that; coached a junior (U-19) side, ran Qviding FIF in a promotion season in 2018-19, then as assistant at BK Hacken in 2020-21 (where the club made the Europa League but were knocked out nearly immediately) and then as manager of BK Hacken FF – the women’s side – from late 2021 to late 2023.
- There Vilahamn seems to have done well; second in the Damallsvenskan in 2021 and 2022, two runners-up medals in the Swedish Cup, as well as a UEFA Champions League berth in the 2021-22 and 2022-23 editions (where they were unceremoniously booted in the pre-group qualifiers, by the Norwegian club Valarenga in ’21-22, and by Paris St. Germain in ’22-23). When he was hired away Hacken FF was top of table in the summer of 2023.
- His final gig before Portland was at Tottenham Women, between July 2023 and June 2025. There his record is exceptionally mixed; the club was runners-up in the 2024 FA Cup (albeit only to be spanked 4-nil by ManU in the Final) but finished only sixth in the FAWSL (8-7-7, 24 points behind the champions Chelsea, 31GF, 36GA) and the following season utterly cratered, going 5-5-12, 11th of 12 in the league and 30 points behind Chelsea, 26GF, 44GA, which got Vilahamn canned in July 2025.
I don’t have any sense at all of how a Vilahamn club plays.
His records aren’t much of a help, either. Will his Thorns be BK Hacken, or the Tottenham of 2023-24, or Ytterby, or the Spurs of 2024-25? Certainly his record in knockouts is all over the place; early exits with both the BK Hacken sides, but a Cup run all the way to the Final with Chelsea in ’24.
This is all a long form way of saying that as a head coach this guy is very much a “peaches/lunch meat” to me at the moment, and that I don’t see him changing that most quick smart. There’s no way he really stamps whatever it is he stamps on the squad before Opening Day.
But once there?
We’ll just have to see.
Here’s my single biggest overall concern about this; if this guy is all that, he was available July of 2025.
Which suggests to me that either 1) the club was targeting someone else, someone with a better c.v. and a bigger profile, but couldn’t land them so they went with this guy as the fallback option, or 2) the club couldn’t find anyone bigger and better and finally took this guy as the best they could get before the season. That’s not reassuring.
Either way, this is who we’ve got, and we’ll have to hope that he’s what the top end of his resume says he is.
Any thoughts on this?
Update 3/4: So Phuoc Nguyen at Stumptown has thoughts, and they’re not good:
“Final Grade: F – This head coaching hire falls short in all aspects and standards imaginable.”
The grade comes from five components; timing (too late), ambition (too low, citing Vilahamn’s work at Spurs), gender (not female), person (not Sarah Lowdon), and experience (again citing Spurs and lack-of-NWSL-time).
It’s an interesting take, and I get it. The late date does bug me a bit, as I noted in the post. That said, the problem with hunting up a big name candidate after October 2025 was baked in. The only way to avoid that would have been to hang on to Gale for another season or most-of-a-season, and I’d suggest that had major issues, too.
As we discussed in the post; Vilahamn’s work at Hacken FF was damn solid, and his tenure at Spurs wasn’t the dumpster fire Nguyen suggests. He didn’t do well at Ytterby, but that was a while ago.
I’d have like to seen RAJ give Lowdon a shot; I made a case for her over Mike Norris back in 2024 (go look up “Envious Casca”), but this is now the second time they’ve passed her over and that suggests there’s some problem there. Either with the ownership/FO or the squad, or both, for some reason(s) Lowdon isn’t in the plans.
I’d also like to see a woman HC, but I’m good whatever so long as the new manager has some solid technical and tactical chops.
If you look in the comments from the Stumptown piece, long-time commentor ag167 found some good information on how Vilahamn’s Spurs played. I’ll pass on the links here:
https://www.thecutback.com/p/spurs-season-so-far-stuck-in-the
https://www.thecutback.com/p/robert-vilahamns-tottenham-wsl
They’re paywalled, but ag167 provides some excerpts:
“On the pitch, there have been good periods but manager, Robert Vilahamn’s avowedly ‘daring’ slick-passing, free-scoring style of play has not always been visible and, at times, players have found it hard to connect defence and attack”
And here:
“Under Vilahamn, the team has shaped a clear attacking identity based on quick exchanges and combinations, though their end product has often lacked. Defensive issues—especially in central areas and transitions—have been a limiting factor, but the arrival of Kop has brought stability in goal, offering a foundation to build on”
So, again…we’ll see.
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Off-topic factoid:
Ytterby contributes its name to not one, not just two, but *four* elements in the periodic table, more than any other person or place: ytterbium, terbium, erbium, and yttrium. There’s a quarry outside the town where all of these metals, which are rare earths, were dug up. Five other elements were also discovered from that quarry, though they weren’t named after the town.
Well, we have a coach 2 weeks before the season starts. At this point I am going to assume that the FO did its due diligence and got a coach it is happy with. I think I agree with you that he probably wasn’t the top choice, and that the person they wanted ended up either turning them down or wasn’t going to be available in the timeframe they wanted. I don’t expect Vilahamn to turn the squad into a world beater in the first 2 months of the season, but what I will be looking for is an identity that the team can hang its hat on. Will they be cohesive, will they have an open offensive attack or will they be stout defensively? How will they mask the lack of a true defensive midfielder, how will they take advantage of the forwards they currently have? The real story about this hire will be told in July and August once the team has been under his system for a few months.
A little off topic, it was interesting to watch a few Thorns (and former Thorns) playing the SheBelieves cup. Fleming, Loboa, Moultre all got time, nice to see Heaps and Sonis play as well. Nothing really stood out to me, but I only got to see the first half of the Canada-Colombia game.
I agree; I don’t expect big changes soon. What I hope to see by midseason at least is a style of play that suits the roster and is effective against opponents, and a cooperation with the GM to adapt the roster to the play.
So, for example, by July I want to see Vilahamn find a role for Castellanos. If he can’t, I want to see him telling Agoos “Find a way to package her to get us (type or name of player he wants)”.
If so? I’ll be very pleased.
Agreed, I would rather see them finish 8th this year and play with some kind of clear identity and tactics than finish 3rd again while running around like a headless chicken. Last season never felt like it was building towards anything. If this team has an identity by the end of this season that isn’t kick the ball up to Wilson and pray, I’ll be happy.