Exclusive | Im head coach of the Gotham FC womens soccer team why I took paternity leave in the middle of a season

There is never a perfect time to step away from your team. If you’re a head coach, there is always another game, another trip, another training session.And in professional women’s soccer, those demands last almost 11 months of the year.But, as I tell my players, we’re people first — and when I became a dad, I learned the hard way what it meant to put the job ahead of my family when they needed me most.So when my second child, Laia, was born a few months ago, I knew I had to do things differently.

That meant taking five weeks of paternity leave from Gotham FC — currently the top-ranking team in the National Women’s Soccer League and 2025 champions — in the middle of the season.I only wish I made the same choice back in 2021.At the time, I had just started a job with Real Betis Féminas, a team based in Seville.We were at the bottom of the league and fighting relegation — meaning being demoted to a lower division for the next season — when my wife, Laura, told me she was pregnant.It was a difficult moment at work.

I put all my efforts into the team and we turned things around and pulled off something of a miracle, finishing 12th and securing our survival.Then came my second season as head coach, and, finally, the arrival of my son.Luka was born on a Thursday.

I coached a game the night before while Laura was in the hospital, spent Friday at home with my new family of three and was back on the pitch Saturday afternoon.In Spain, fathers and mothers are both entitled to 16 weeks of leave.But it wasn’t something I felt I could even contemplate.

The team was still struggling, and we didn’t have the resources or structure in place to make it possible.Even when I looked for small ways to spend more time at home — like flying to away games instead of traveling by bus — we couldn’t make them work.To this day, I regret not being able to be the husband and father that my family needed during such a critical period.I wanted to be in two places a...