Head Coach: U.S. Under-20 Women’s National Soccer Team
Hometown: Wethersfield, Connecticut

Tony DiCicco was named head coach of the U.S. Under-20 Women’s National Team in January of 2008. DiCicco will oversee the U-20 program through CONCACAF qualifying and hopefully to the 2008 FIFA Under-20 Women’s World Cup, to be held from Nov. 20-Dec. 7 in Chile.

DiCicco, 57, is one of the most storied coaches in U.S. women’s soccer history, having coached the U.S. Women’s National Team from 1994-1999, a six-year period in which he went 103-8-8 and won the 1996 Olympics and the historic 1999 FIFA Women’s World Cup. That crowd of 90,185 fans at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif., to watch the USA defeat China after penalty kicks in the Women’s World Cup Final was the largest ever to witness a women’s sporting event. DiCicco, who won more games than any coach in U.S. Women’s National Team history, also guided the USA to a third-place finish at the 1995 Women’s World Cup, a gold medal at the 1998 Goodwill Games and numerous other tournament titles.

Before taking over as head coach of the U.S. Women’s National Team, DiCicco had served as an assistant coach since 1991, working with the goalkeepers during the USA’s triumph at the first FIFA Women’s World Cup in China in 1991. He also served as the goalkeeper and assistant coach for the 1993 Under-20 Men’s National Team when it finished in eighth place at the 7th FIFA World Youth Championship in Australia.

Last fall, DiCicco was named head coach of the Boston Breakers in the new women’s professional league, WPS (Women’s Professional Soccer), that is slated to begin play in 2009.

DiCicco currently serves as the technical director of FSASoccerPlus FootballClub in Connecticut, a premier youth club that he founded in 2003, where he coaches youth girls and boys. He is also the head coach of the SoccerPlus Connecticut Reds of the Women’s Premier Soccer League (WPSL) which won the U.S. U-23 National Championship in 2007. DiCicco has also run his successful soccer and goalkeeper camps for the past 27 years (SoccerPlus Camps) and is the Director of the NSCAA Goalkeeper Institute.

DiCicco, who has been appointed as a member of the FIFA Panel of Instructors and Lecturers for Coaching, visited Santiago, Chile in 2007 to help promote the FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup.

In 2002, DiCicco co-authored a book with Dr. Colleen Hacker on coaching women titled, “Catch them Being Good.”

Over the past few years, DiCicco has also done television work as a color commentator, most recently for the NCAA College Cup as well as for ESPN’s coverage of the 2007 FIFA Women’s World Cup in China. He also did TV for the 2003 FIFA Women’s World Cup and the 2000 Olympics.

DiCicco played a key leadership role within the Women’s United Soccer Association, the inaugural women’s professional league which played from 2001-2003. He served as Chief Operating Officer in 2001 and Commissioner in 2002 and 2003.

DiCicco received a bachelor’s degree in physical education from Springfield College in Massachusetts in 1970, where as a goalkeeper he was the captain and the most valuable player his senior year, earning All-America honors. DiCicco also has a master’s degree in physical education from Central Connecticut State University, earned in 1978.

DiCicco played five years of professional soccer in the American Soccer League with the Connecticut Wildcats and Rhode Island Oceaneers, where he was team MVP and captain. In 1973, DiCicco toured and played for the U.S. National Team.

He holds both the U.S. Soccer “A” license and the NSCAA Premier Diploma.

He and his wife Diane reside in Wethersfield, Conn., and have four sons: Anthony, Andrew, Alex, and Nicholas.