{"id":18335,"date":"2026-08-31T16:44:39","date_gmt":"2026-08-31T15:44:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost:8888\/interview-vasquez\/"},"modified":"2026-08-31T16:44:39","modified_gmt":"2026-08-31T15:44:39","slug":"interview-vasquez","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/news\/interview-vasquez\/","title":{"rendered":"Elena Vasquez on courage, July and the squad you actually have"},"content":{"rendered":"
Elena Vasquez has been head coach at Ridgeway for three seasons and has never lost in April. She would like to talk about July.<\/p>\n\n
On courage<\/h2>\n\n
You cannot coach courage into a squad in April. You buy it in July or you don\u2019t have it.<\/p>\u2014 Elena Vasquez<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n
It is a line she has used before, and she knows it. What she means, she says, is that a team's character is settled by the people in the room long before the run-in, and a coach who discovers in spring that the room is short of it has discovered it too late.<\/p>\n\nThe Ridgeway practice court, where the conversation happened.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n
On the model<\/h2>\n\n
She trusts the club's analytics until the point where they tell her which player to keep. That, she says, is a question about people, and the model has never met them.<\/p>\n\n
On next season<\/h2>\n\n
Two signings, both under twenty-three, both made in July. Asked whether they were bought for courage, she laughs, and then does not say no.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
You cannot coach courage into a squad in April. You buy it in July or you don\u2019t have it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":18216,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_spx_person_id":0,"_spx_fixture_id":0,"_spx_pick_id":0,"_spx_eg_facts_label":"","_spx_eg_facts":"","_spx_figure_caption":"","_spx_news_feat":"","_spx_video_url":"","_spx_duration":"","_spx_views":"","_spx_presenter":"","_spx_media_state":"","_spx_start_at":"","_spx_media_status":"","_spx_episode":"","_spx_subject":"Elena Vasquez","_spx_subject_role":"Head coach, Ridgeway Rooks","_spx_story_year":"","_spx_duration_seconds":0,"_spx_view_count":1,"footnotes":""},"categories":[85],"tags":[],"spx_comp":[],"spx_fixture_ref":[],"spx_series":[],"spx_format":[310],"spx_video_kind":[],"spx_show":[],"spx_sport":[],"spx_flag":[],"class_list":["post-18335","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interviews","spx_format-long-read"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18335","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18335"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18335\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18335"},{"taxonomy":"spx_comp","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/spx_comp?post=18335"},{"taxonomy":"spx_fixture_ref","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/spx_fixture_ref?post=18335"},{"taxonomy":"spx_series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/spx_series?post=18335"},{"taxonomy":"spx_format","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/spx_format?post=18335"},{"taxonomy":"spx_video_kind","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/spx_video_kind?post=18335"},{"taxonomy":"spx_show","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/spx_show?post=18335"},{"taxonomy":"spx_sport","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/spx_sport?post=18335"},{"taxonomy":"spx_flag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preview.sportpulse.anpsthemes.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/spx_flag?post=18335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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