Australian women's national football team head coach TOM SERMANNI has been hired as the head coach of the U.S. women's national football team, according to Nicholas Rosano of MLSSOCCER.com. The Matildas coach will replace PIA SUNDHAGE, "who resigned earlier this year after leading the U.S. team" to two Olympic Gold Medals and second place in the 2011 FIFA Women's World Cup. Sermanni was chosen out of 30 candidates by a search committee led by U.S. Soccer Federation President SUNIL GULATI and included other U.S. Soccer officials, as well as former women's players MIA HAMM and DANIELLE SLATON. Sermanni's role will become effective Jan. 1, and U.S. Soccer women's Development Dir JILL ELLIS "will take charge of the remaining five" women's games in '12 (MLSSOCCER.com, 10/30). In Sydney, Ray Gatt wrote Australian football "has been rocked" by Sermanni's resignation. Sermanni coached the Matildas for eight years, "helping produce some outstanding talent, as well as guiding the side to an historic win in the Asian Cup finals in '10." He was named Asian Football Confederation Coach of the Year in '07. Sermanni said that it "was one of the toughest decisions he has had to make." Sermanni: "In football, and in life, it's all about timing, and with Australian women's football quite settled at the moment, with the national teams and the Westfield W-League, the timing of this challenge to coach the number one women's football team in the world was at the right time for me to accept" (THE AUSTRALIAN, 10/31).
