EXCLUSIVE: Dawn Scott leaves US Soccer to join England
Dawn Scott worked for US Soccer from 2010
Written by Simon Austin — November 16, 2019
DAWN SCOTT, who played a major role in helping the USA win back-to-back Women’s World Cups, has been lured home to work with the England team.
The native of South Shields has been appointed Physical Performance Coach for Phil Neville’s senior England women’s team.
Scott, who worked for the Football Association until 2010, was widely praised for her impact during nine years as USA High Performance Coach, with former goalkeeper Hope Solo describing the team's sports science as "second to none".
Scott will now be responsible for leading “the operational delivery of a game-changing physical performance service to the England Senior Women’s team.”
Her role will involve delivering “a world-class physical performance, nutrition and coaching service… to enable the development of world leading physical capability”.
During her previous nine years at the FA, Scott was Head of Sports Science and Exercise Science for the women’s team, although when she started, in 2001, “there was no sports science programme".
"Back then, sports science was even new in the men's game, and on the women's side it was non-existent," Scott remembered.
Now there is an extensive team of sports scientists, medics and analysts on the women's side, as you can see in the TGG staff profiles for the Lionesses above. The vacancy in the set-up arose when Physical Performance Coach Ben Young moved over to the men’s set-up in August.
Scott was High Performance Coach for the USA Women during a period in which they won the 2012 Olympics and 2015 and 2019 World Cups.
Former national keeper Solo said: "The sports science aspect on the US team is second to none. Of course, we took Dawn Scott, our fitness coach, from you guys in England. We train at altitude, we train in humidity and we train in the heat, so we know how to take care of our bodies."
Scott described her role with US Soccer as overseeing "everything in terms of physical fitness or physical status of players, monitoring physical training every day with GPS heart rates.
"I oversee the recovery side in relation to hydration and nutrition, whether that's ice tubs, pool session recovery or stretching. And then a new area we are focusing on as well is monitoring menstrual cycles and paying attention to certain things in players' diets around that as well.
"When they players are not in camp, I prescribe their training loads and training programmes and then work in conjunction with NWSL clubs, minimising injury risk and then optimising physical performance."
The FA's Director of Women's Football, Baroness Sue Campbell, was influential during the selection process for Scott's role.
The US Women’s team has recently been through a period of flux, with Jill Ellis stepping down at the end of the World Cup and Vlatko Andonovski taking over from her as Head Coach.
Englishman James Bunce, who used to work for Southampton and the Premier League, is Director of High Performance for US Soccer and will be responsible for finding a replacement for Dawn Scott.
