OL Reign coach Farid Benstiti resigns after less than 2 seasons

Publish date: 2024-05-03

Farid Benstiti has resigned as the head coach of the OL Reign, the team announced Friday. The news came hours before Friday night's match in Houston against the Dash, ending Benstiti's tenure after less than two years.

"We are appreciative of Farid's many contributions to the club over the past 18 months and wish him the best in all his future endeavors," CEO Bill Predmore said in a statement. "We have great respect for Farid's talents and all he brought to the organization, but in our recent conversations there was a collective agreement that new leadership was required to achieve the performances and results needed to satisfy our ambitions."

Benstiti, 54, joined the Reign in January 2020 and went 6-9-5 across all competitions, including 2-4-1 to start the 2021 season. He previously coached in China, France and Russia.

Assistant Sam Laity, who has been with the team since it debuted in 2013, will serve as interim head coach.

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What went wrong during Benstiti's tenure?

Steph Yang, soccer staff writer: Benstiti has a minus-3 goal differential this season, and the Reign's most recent 3-0 whomping by Gotham leaves them ninth in the league table.

Given the talent on the team — particularly with a re-energized Jess Fishlock and recent field player additions Dzsenifer Marozsán, Rose Lavelle, Alana Cook and Eugénie Le Sommer — they simply should be scoring and winning more. But Benstiti clearly wasn't optimizing his roster, both in terms of roster time and tactics.

What's next for the Reign?

Meg Linehan, soccer staff writer: There are certainly no questions about Laity's understanding of the organization and the club's performance on the field considering his tenure.

The Reign have picked up major international talent, including loans from parent club Lyon but also signing Lavelle after her return from England. The club has also rising talent like Tziarra King.

The roster hasn't matched the results at all, however, so step one is at least winning a couple of matches. OL Reign shouldn't feel too much pressure to make an immediate hire with Laity stepping up for now.

(Photo: Jane Gershovich / ISI Photos / Getty Images)

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