Vlatko Andonovski's tenure as head coach of the United States women's national team is over. That fact was confirmed the second the USWNT fell to Sweden in the World Cup's last 16, though it wasn't made official until Thursday when it was confirmed that he has stepped down from the role. It's the nature of the job, really: anything less than perfection is generally going to be seen as not good enough.
But, make no mistake, Andonovski came nowhere near perfection. He generally seemed well-liked by players and has proven himself as a capable head coach during his time in the NWSL, but his USWNT tenure will be remembered as nothing short of a disaster. It'll not just be remembered as the era in which the rest of the world truly caught up with the USWNT, but also the era in which the USWNT left themselves open to it by botching everything from personnel selections to in-game adjustments.
The blame for that will fall on Andonovski, although there's plenty to go around from the highest levels of U.S. Soccer all the way down. This wasn't a one-man mess, for sure. Regardless, so ends the Andonovski era, one that will be looked back at as a failure as the U.S. never got close to reaching the standards of yesteryear.