America's NWSL set for its climax with two British coaches at the helm

Englishmen Paul Riley and Mark Parsons go head-to-head as coaches of North Carolina Courage FC and Portland Thorns in the NWSL final

Last year's final was won by New York Western Flash, since rebranded as North Carolina Courage (Getty)

Most English people go to Orlando for Disney World, but there is nothing Mickey Mouse about the ambitions of Paul Riley and Mark Parsons. The two will be in America’s fun capital on Saturday coaching opposing teams in the final of America’s National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) – the leading domestic competition in women’s football.

Riley, a 54-year-old Liverpudlian, has been in the US since going there to play college football as a teenager. He coaches North Carolina Courage FC, reigning champions and already winners of the regular season Shield.

Parsons is 31, from Cranleigh in rural Surrey. Having failed to make it into Woking’s first XI he quit football at 18 to fit car stereos and alarms. Drawn back into the sport as a community coach with Chelsea he is now at Portland Thorns, women’s football’s best-supported club. Adding spice is the fact Thorns fired Riley two years ago, then lost 4-3 to him in last season’s play-offs.

This is not quite a re-match. Last season’s title was won by New York Western Flash, based near the Niagara Falls tourist town of Buffalo. In January the NWSL franchise was bought, rebranded as North Carolina Courage and moved 500 miles south to Raleigh.

Last season’s title was won by New York Western Flash, now North Carolina Courage (Getty)

“I got a call just before New Year’s Eve saying we’d been sold,” said Riley. “We moved in February and the season began in April. It was a whirlwind, but it has been good for us. I think if we had stayed in Buffalo we would have lost some of the players at the end of this season, but this is a bigger town and the girls like it. The facilities are much better. We used to train on [artificial] turf in a tent. We only experienced grass, or wind, on match days. We train outdoors now.”

Courage have added 20 per cent to Flash’s average gate but like everyone else in NWSL remain well behind Thorns. Part of MLS club Portland Timbers they average close to 18,000 very noisy fans. They also have a clutch of US national players and global stars including Canadian legend Christine Sinclair, French midfielder Amandine Henry and Nadia Nadim, the Afghan child refugee who played for Denmark in the final of Euro 2017 and will join Manchester City in January.

“They have world experience, we are ‘the junkyard dogs’”, said Riley, who is noted for building an underdog mentality. Riley’s origins are given away by the names of his own dogs: Shankly, Dalglish and… Charlie? “I wanted Keegan for the third,” he explains, “but my wife disagreed.”

He came to the US planning to graduate then play NASL – the league of Best, Cruyff and Pele. But NASL folded and he fell into coaching in his early twenties “to stay here”. In 2002 he began coaching girls too. He’s rarely been unemployed since.

Nor has Parsons since the day a friend suggested he do some coaching at Chelsea’s after-school and Saturday clubs. That led to involvement with the U14 girls. “Once I got a taste of working at elite level I gave all my energy to be better,” he said.

Portland Thorns are the NWSL's best-supported club (Getty)

He rose to lead the centre of excellence and Chelsea reserves, but women’s football in England was then part-time. “I had been a Chelsea supporter all my life, working there and looking out at Mourinho, Ancelotti, Hiddink, was a dream, but I wanted to work on developing players full-time.”

He and wife Hannah decided to give America a try – “six to eight months”. He found a coaching job at a small club in Virginia. After a while he got another, part-time, in Washington, with the U20s women. Then NWSL began and that club became Washington Spirit. When the head coach was fired midway through the first season Parsons was given the job. He was 26. “I was very young. It was a sharp learning curve.”

He learned fast, his work catching Portland’s eye. It is the top club job in the US and Parsons gives every impression that even England, seeking a replacement for Mark Sampson, could not tempt him away. Riley, though expecting the FA to appoint a woman, is interested. He was close before Sampson was appointed, but ruled out for not having an A licence. There is still his American wife, Tracy, to consider, but he has one now. “It is a dream job, and I think England can be the best in the world,” he said. But for now these two Englishman are focusing on being the best in America.