Casey Stoney: Ex-English captain during the reconstruction to San Diego, who was ventilated and the Canada boss

Stoney, who won 130 caps for England at the 2012 Olympic Games in Great Britain, had been responsible for San Diego Wave for almost three years after he had resigned as Manchester United Manager in 2021.

The NWSL club was a new franchise when it became head coach and in the first two seasons to third place and then led the top position.

They reached the semi-finals of the play-offs of the season twice, which the champions of the league crowned, but their third season had not continued the same trajectory with only three victories after 14 games.

She saw the job as a long -term project. She had experienced a painful spell from her partner Megan and three children – twins Teddy and Tilly and the youngest child Willow – when she moved to the USA for the first time, but they had finally solved their visa problems so that they were reunited and their family home could be set up in California.

“It took 22 months to bring them out there, we were 22 months apart, we were not even out there for a year [together] And I lost my job, “she says.

“If I am honest, I didn't think I deserved to lose my job, and that made it even more difficult. With the success we had, we only had a small bathroom. It wasn't even something big.

“In order to be treated, it was really difficult to swallow on a personal level, but it was more that had happened to my family.

“I have three little children, they were nine and six at that time, they had no home. So for me it is indispensable to do a family.”

On the day her children were supposed to be back in school after their summer break in San Diego in August, Stoney went and went at school.

It was a time that describes it as “one of the most difficult times in my life”.

She says: “It questioned me whether I wanted to stay in the game, because if the game got you up and spits you out, after everything we had sacrificed to be there, and after what I had achieved in a short time and what we had achieved as a club, the game questioned me.

“After the announcement, I received offers pretty quickly and said to everyone if they were right or wrong because I wanted to take the time. I had to make sure that I sorted out our lives.

“My family was my family [and] How do we get back to San Diego? “