CHICAGO – U.S. Soccer Thursday announced that Ellie Maybury has been named the head of performance for the U.S. women’s national team while Julian Haigh has been named the USWNT sports ccientist.

Maybury and Haigh, who have been overseeing the USWNT’s fitness since the latter part of 2019, will be full-time members of U.S. head coach Vlatko Andonovski’s staff.

Maybury will be responsible for creating and executing the overall day-to-day sport science and performance plan for the USWNT, which includes the athletic development of players, optimal preparation of players for competition, monitoring of players’ training/match loads, maintaining optimal recovery for post-training/competition, injury prevention strategies, nutritional strategies and prescription of strength and conditioning training programs.

Haigh will assist Maybury in all aspects of sports science and performance for the team.

“Ellie and Julian are highly-motivated professionals with a passion for sports science and both have several years of experience working their way up through our youth national teams and the NWSL, respectively,” SWNT general manager Kate Markgraf said in a statement. “The physical training and monitoring of our players is tremendously important to how we play and paramount to maintaining our players’ health and well-being, especially coming out of the pandemic, when most of the players will have played significantly less games at the club and international level. With their individual and collective experience, they are vital in navigating the physical needs of our players to compete for world titles. We are privileged to add Ellie and Julian as full-time members of the senior national team staff.”

Maybury joined U.S. Soccer full time in January 2016 as the lead sport scientist for all of the youth women’s national teams, overseeing the sports science and physiological aspects of the USA’s eight women’s youth teams with specific emphasis on the Under-17 and U-20 WNTs during their World Cup cycles.

In 2016, she was with the U.S. teams for both the FIFA Under-17 Women’s World Cup in Jordan and the FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup in Papua New Guinea. In 2018, she was on the staff for the FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup in Uruguay.

Haigh has worked for U.S. Soccer as a sports scientist for three years, overseeing all National Women’s Soccer League clubs and the U.S. Under-23 women’s national team while helping gather and analyze fitness and performance data of every player in the pro league. He will continue in his role with the NWSL and its clubs while also working with Maybury and the USWNT.

Prior to coming to U.S. Soccer, Haigh worked a season and half in the NWSL as the sports scientist for the Boston Breakers. He also worked five seasons in sports science and strength and conditioning with the Widnes Vikings in England’s professional rugby Super League.

Front Row Soccer editor Michael Lewis has covered 13 World Cups (eight men, five women), seven Olympics and 25 MLS Cups. He has written about New York City FC, New York Cosmos, the New York Red Bulls and both U.S. national teams for Newsday and has penned a soccer history column for the Guardian.com. Lewis, who has been honored by the Press Club of Long Island and National Soccer Coaches Association of America, is the former editor of BigAppleSoccer.com. He has written seven books about the beautiful game and has published ALIVE AND KICKING The incredible but true story of the Rochester Lancers. It is available at Amazon.com.