Jill Ellis – Farewell to the Winningest Coach in U.S. Soccer History
Ellis leaves the USWNT not just with back-to-back World Cup titles but as the all-time leader in wins with 106, surpassing the late great Tony DiCicco (105).
On Sunday Oct. 6, 2019, on a beautiful fall day in Chicago, home of the U.S. Soccer Federation headquarters, Jill Ellis coached her final game for the U.S. Women’s National Team. Ellis leaves the USWNT not just with back-to-back World Cup titles but as the all-time leader in wins with 106, surpassing the late great Tony DiCicco (105).
With a legacy cemented in the history books, we dig a bit deeper and look at some incredible numbers, some fun facts and stats, and remember the incredible feats Ellis accomplished on the field, which will forever have an impact outside the lines.
As head coach of the U.S. WNT…
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Jill Ellis finished her remarkable career with a 106-7-19 overall record, earning 99 more wins than she had losses.
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She finishes her career having coached 132 international games, more than any USWNT coach in history.
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Ellis is the only coach to win TWO Women’s World Cup Tournaments and one of only two coaches in history to win two World Cups. The other was Vittorio Pozzo, the Italian men’s coach in their 1934 and 1938 World Cups wins.
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Her teams put together unbeaten streaks of 24, 26, 28 and 21 games, and lost consecutive games just once, at the SheBelieves Cup in 2017.
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Ellis closed out her career with a 17-game win streak, the longest she ever had.
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She went undefeated in World Cup qualifying and World Cup games (23-0-1).
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Most impressively, Ellis never lost a World Cup match, going 13-0-1 (with the only blemish being a 0-0 draw with Sweden during group play at the 2015 World Cup).
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She lost more than one game only to France (which beat the USA 3 times during her tenure, but NOT at the World Cup though!)
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She coached against 39 different opponents and beat 38 of them at least once. The only exception was Iceland (which was a 0-0 draw at the Algarve Cup).
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Ellis never lost in California, where she coached UCLA for more than a decade, going 15-0-0.
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With Ellis at the helm, the USWNT averaged 3.1 goals/game and conceded just 0.5. The team earned a shutout in 83 of her 132 games (63%).
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When going abroad to Europe, Ellis continued her success, leading the team to an overall 16-1-2 record.
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Ellis won eight tournaments during her time on the U.S. touchline: the 2015 Algarve Cup, the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup, the 2016 CONCACAF Women’s Olympic Qualifying Championship, the 2016 SheBelieves Cup, the 2018 SheBelieves Cup, the 2018 Tournament of Nations, the 2018 Concacaf Women’s Championship and the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup.
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During her time as head coach, both interim and officially, Ellis called up 80 players to take part in at least one training camp. Of those 80 players, 57 earned at least one cap. Ellis also gave 29 players their first caps.
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Ellis coached the most games of her U.S. WNT career on Sundays. Fittingly, her final game as head coach of the USA also came on a Sunday.
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The USA had nine different goal scorers at the W2019 World Cup. Only the 2003 German team (10) and the 1999 American team (10) had more at a single WWC.
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The USA set record for most goals scored in a World Cup with 26 in 2019 (and of course, most goals in a game (13) and a half (10) vs. Thailand).