Overhaul of Brooklyn FC women's team continues with new coach, roster changes

Brooklyn FC of the USL Super League is undergoing another significant overhaul with a new season, albeit an abbreviated 14-match "sprint season," kicking off on August 15 on the road against defending champions Lexigton SC.

After a second consecutive campaign ending without qualification for the USL Super League's championship playoffs, Brooklyn moved on from Tomás Tengarrinha and the 2025/26 coaching staff, as well as the club's sporting director on the women's side, Kevin Tenjo.

In Tenjo's place, the club, still overseen on the soccer side by former United States and Fulham FC star Brian McBride, hired former NWSL player Samantha Johnson in early June.

Now, Brooklyn has tapped Alex Smith to be the third head coach of the Super League side as it enters a third season. Smith arrives from Brisbane Roar FC in Australia's A-League Women, where he's coached since 2023. Smith broke a record for most appearances as head coach for Brisbane Roar's women's team, and the 2025/26 campaign was his most successful with the Roar. His squad finished in fourth place in the league table and reached the semifinal round of the A-League Women's playoffs, the first time in five years that Brisbane Roar had finished that high at the end of a season.

Brooklyn will be hoping Smith can pull off a similar turnaround as he returns to the United States, where he grew up from age-one on and where he played collegiately and, for one season, as a reserve with FC Dallas in Major League Soccer.

The Brooklyn squad needs a rebuild in search of improved on-field results, and the changes are well underway, with BKFC parting with numerous long-tenured players from the Super League squad.

Four players with Brooklyn since the beginning of the club's existence are officially leaving: Midfielders Sam Kroeger and Hope Breslin, plus defenders Leah Scarpelli and Kelsey Hill. Another player there since the inaugural season, Jessica Garziano, is reportedly in discussions with the team over a possible return.

Brooklyn also says the club won't be retaining goalkeeper Kelsey Daugherty, midfielder Mylena Freitas, defender Alice Barbieri, and forward Ana Markovic. This comes after club captain Sam Rosette retired at the end of the season, and also while the team's leading scorer, Rebecca Cooke, is ruled out for the entirety of the fall 2026 season as she recovers from a torn ACL.

Additions have started to trickle in for Brooklyn, as just today it was announced by NWSL side Boston Legacy FC that 21-year-old midfielder Sophia Lowenberg will head to Brooklyn on a loan through the end of December 2026, giving Brooklyn a new midfield option for the fall season. Lowenberg, a native of Trumbull, Connecticut, played four season at Boston College and became Legacy FC's first local college player signed ahead of their 2026 expansion season, but she'd only made one brief NWSL appearance with Boston.

Brooklyn will once again look different on the field when the fall 2026 season begins, after the club went through a similar roster revamp following a disappointing debut campaign in 2024/25.

The upcoming fall 2026 season is an abbreviated one before USL Super League flips its competitive calendar to be identical to the one used by NWSL. The USL Super League debuted with a plan to follow the European-style calendar, with fall and spring halves of their seasons split up by a winter break, but the league is quickly pivoting to the more traditional spring-to-fall calendar followed by NWSL and, at least for now, Major League Soccer.

The league is in a moment of slight turmoil as its third season approaches, given that one of its teams, Spokane Zephyr FC, folded following the conclusion of the 2025/26 season, and another club, Dallas Trinity FC, saw the family that founded and funded it decide to sell the franchise to a new ownership group, Atlético Dallas, which plans to field both men's and women's teams in USL in coming seasons — an arrangement that will be familiar to any followers of Brooklyn FC.