On Sunday, June 22nd, Jonatan “Jona” Giráldez officially ended his yearish-long tenure as manager of the Washington Spirit.
Man, what a year!
It was a year filled with hope and excitement. A year of change and adjustment. New coaches, new players, new practices, and new roles! There were intense bouts of glory and wonder, surprises — some pleasant, some disorienting — and, yes, even disappointment.
But most importantly, it was about new ideas. The soccer writer and podcaster Rory Smith often says, “football is about ideas.” If true than the Giráldez experience was loaded with them. They appeared on the field, in press conferences, and on the sidelines.
And the biggest idea had to be identity. What is the Washington Spirit about?
Winning appeared to be THE highest priority. This was both impressive and surprising.
Jona previously coached FC Barcelona Femení, the most dominant team in all of women’s soccer. It won by playing the Barcelona way, the most distinctive and recognizable brand of soccer in the world.
While the name is synonymous with total ball control and intricate passing sequences, the Barcelona way is much more than a playing style. It is a philosophy and a way of life. "Més que un club" ("More than a club") goes the motto. Players are bred to have sticky feet and a mind-blowing sense of time and space. It’s basically soccer’s equivalent of Shaolin kung fu and Jona was its latest grand master; up there with the likes of previous practitioners Johan Cruyff and Pep Guardiola.
So, Jona’s hiring was a message. The Spirit don’t just want to win. They want to play the Barca way…or, at least, that was the interpretation.
“Jona knows how to develop players into champions. He will bring a beautiful style of play to the Spirit that we know our fans will enjoy,” said Mark Krikorian, former Spirit President of Soccer Operations, in the hiring announcement.
But that’s not exactly what appeared on the field. Under Giráldez, the Spirit looked more like the early 2000s New England Patriots than the Barcelona men’s team circa 2010.
Instead of Pep and tiki-taka futbol, the Spirit got an upbeat and rule-abiding version of peak Bill Belichick and the “Patriot Way”. And that was a good thing!
Yes, there were glimpses of Barcelona’s trademark style and flair, but they may have been hindered by a never-ending lengthy injury list. So, during the Giráldez experience fans witnessed the Spirit become brilliantly ruthless and pragmatic.
Every match felt like a safe cracking mission. Before a game, each new opponent was cased. Jona and his staff would then review the intel, looking for strengths and weaknesses; devise a plan and assemble the team. Strategies, tactics, and line-ups would change weekly. Players often played new roles. During matches, all these elements would shift and be adjusted — sometimes dramatically — as Jona, the staff, and the players tried to engineer solutions in real time.
It also felt like the Spirit were following a longer-term strategy. This was most evident in the rosters. Every week there was a new surprise. Players that typically would have rarely seen the pitch played significant minutes and made important contributions. The logic appeared to be something along the lines of “everyone on the team is important, everyone is competing for playing time, and anyone may be called on to help in any way possible.”
“The team is the most important thing,” said Giráldez after a match played on November 2nd, 2024. “When you are playing it is very easy…to be positive. But when you are not playing you need to be consistent in the training session and try to keep growing as a player and (try to) develop you’re your profile.”
It was a level playing field and it sounds like Jona literally practiced what he preached.
“The way that we train. We play with everyone,” said Spirit forward Ashley Hatch during a June 19, 2025 interview with the Women’s Game. “I’ve been on teams where…starters only play with starters and non-starters only play with non-starters and that makes it really difficult to create relationships with everyone. I think that's why you've been able to see that we're such a dynamic team and we can score goals from anywhere and (from) anyone. Because we're all doing it always in training…it makes it super enjoyable and I'm having fun playing with my teammates.”
On the flip side, this hyper competitive environment appeared to be balanced by a strong sense of comradery. The Spirit were on a mission. Everyone was committed to The Spirit Way. The quotes, the body language, the flow of games, all reeked of it. It was “us against the world,” but not in a resentful way. It was more like the Spirit wanted to prove that it was possible to run tied together as one giant thirty-legged team in a three-legged race.
They knew who they were and what the Spirit Way was about, and fans could feel it.
The Spirit Way — this gritty, grounded, determined, safe-cracker identity — gelled in August and September, as the injury list expanded, and powered them through a magical November playoff run.
This season, the team and its identity has had its ups and downs. The identity was on full display when the team gutted out two early season wins against last year’s nemesis, the Orlando Pride, as well during a midseason draw against the high-flying Wave in San Diego. However, it was absent or tardy in games against Gotham FC and Angel City.
Nonetheless, what’s different about this season is that the team has an identity to work from. Now, thanks the Giraldez experience, the team and the fans know in their bones what The Spirit Way means. It defines the team and its expectations.
Adrián González, the assistant coach throughout all this experience has taken over. Given his prior record, Spirit fans should feel hopeful if not also spoiled.
Last year, Adrián played a huge role in laying the foundation for the new Spirit Way by guiding the team while Jona completed his last season at Barcelona. And before that, he was so successful that the team he coached, RCD Espanyol Femení, another Barcelona team, was promoted from the Spanish’s league’s second division Primera Federación up to its top division Liga F.
So, thank you, Jona! And good luck, Adrián!!
- The Middle-Aged Slacker