GM Kate Markgraf is laying the groundwork for the USWNT to win the World Cup

It’s a question straight out of the movie “Office Space,” in the scene where the outside consultants — The Bobs — are making everyone interview for their existing jobs.

“What would you say you do here?”

Unlike the characters in the iconic film, U.S. women’s national team general manager Kate Markgraf’s job isn’t in any danger, but the answer to that query isn’t widely known. Sure, she’s in charge with leading the search for coaches that make up the U.S. women’s national team program. And? It’s not obvious from the outside, especially since the GM role never existed until Markgraf was hired in 2019.

Markgraf, in an exclusive interview with ESPN, described her job as one part “ambassadorial” and another part “director of women’s football.”

“The reality is my job is to help solidify and strengthen the different departments that impact our national teams as well as manage the hiring process and selection of our coaches, from all the female youth coaches that are full-time to our senior team,” she said.

Given her undergraduate degree in science business from the University of Notre Dame, as well as masters degrees in kinesiology and educational psychology from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, plus a long and distinguished career as a player with the USWNT, Markgraf brings a unique skillset to the position, all while setting the course for the U.S. women’s program.

It’s clear Markgraf wears a variety of hats. She’s the conductor of the orchestra — a confidante, a taskmaster and data analyst all rolled into one. Her role as a defender during her playing days dovetails nicely into her current position, too: It’s her job to study, anticipate and sniff out potential problems before they become critical issues. This isn’t to say that there isn’t plenty of delegation of responsibilities, but she is intent on feeling the pulse of the team and the broader organization on the women’s side of the game.

Oh, and all of this is with the stated goal of helping the USWNT win their third consecutive World Cup title, something that has never been done. But Markgraf insists that there is one area where she doesn’t stray, which is selecting the roster or anything relating to team tactics. That remains the exclusive purview of USWNT manager Vlatko Andonovski.

“I don’t believe a coach should be told, ‘This is your roster, and you’re going to play this person a certain amount of minutes,'” she said. “You hire a coach because you trust him and you hire his assistants because you trust that they’re going to help the technical staff. You hire everybody with an intention to complement a skill set of one another. I don’t do, ‘Kate Markgraf is going to come out of retirement and you’re going to play her 45 minutes.’ “

But while Markgraf isn’t making the final decisions, she is to a degree shaping the roster. If Andonovski does the construction, Markgraf helps provide the scaffolding — and lots of it, in fact. That includes helping build the framework by which the national team player pool is evaluated.

Markgraf described a data set being used to evaluate players with an incredible level of granularity. An example is how many times a player operating between the lines receives the ball with the correct body position so they can make a forward pass. This requires Markgraf, along with the coaching and support staff, to consume immense amounts of video, and not just on the usual suspects either. They study players outside the typical player pool as well.

So where does she land on the data versus instinct scale? “I think it’s triangulation, right? It’s what you see, what you feel and what the data says,” she said. “There is something with player scouting and talent identification and development, and then you rely on all three. And also stylistically — where do you want to go and what do we need? What’s game plan-specific?”

Markgraf does have one problem with the data that’s made available for the U.S. women’s national team. Statistics like xG, or expected goals, are based on models for male players. If a shot has a certain xG, or expected likelihood of turning into a goal, would it have the exact same xG in the women’s game?

“I’m not sure if it’s different [for female players],” she said. “I just want to know.”

Markgraf’s influence on the roster also happens in other ways, with the line of communication wide open on any number of topics. Markgraf speaks regularly with agents and NWSL team GMs. Andonovski is speaking to NWSL coaches and players, and then those conversations are shared between the two of them.

Markgraf plants seeds as well. She recounted how at one point during the cycle there were 15 matches left, so how was Andonovski going to go about giving playing time to less experienced players, to better fill out gaps in the team’s skill set? That focus has manifested itself with the likes of Trinity Rodman, Naomi Girma and Alyssa Thompson being included in the final World Cup roster. She added that when Mallory Swanson went down with a torn patellar tendon against Ireland on April 8, she and Andonovski had conversations about how that might impact the team tactically.

If that sounds like borderline meddling, Andonovski doesn’t seem to mind; if anything, he seems to appreciate the back and forth. No other coach in USWNT history has had a U.S. Soccer executive directly assigned to helping them do their job well, and Markgraf and Andonovski have a good working relationship. Prior to the July 9 send-off game against Wales, Andonovski spoke of how he doesn’t view Markgraf as a boss but also a friend, even as she tests him.

“One thing that I really like is just positioning certain questions in a way to help us or guide us to make some tough decisions,” said Andonovski, who was hired by Markgraf as USWNT coach in 2019. “So obviously, sitting in this seat, we have to make so many tough decisions in different times, whether it’s on the field or off the field. But the questions that she is posing is in such a professional and respectful way, help us think deeper, help us think different, outside of the box, and in a way prepare ourself for even more stressful moments and be ready for it.”

It helps that Markgraf is big on processes and data. You know the cliché: Control the controllables. Well, Markgraf wants to make sure there are as many controllables as possible.

“I’m always, ‘This has a one percent chance of happening, y’all, but what’s our plan?'” she said. “If [staff] bring up ideas, I’m like, ‘Well, let’s test it. Let’s do it.’ And whether that’s traveling right after a game in Austin or immediately after, because who’s going to go to the plane to pack it? All those things. But let’s identify all that and let’s work on it, so we don’t have any question marks when we are stressed or when the players are stressed. And we have to be the ones that can’t be stressed visibly because the whole point is to help them perform. So how do we help the staff perform?”

Put another way, Markgraf’s job is taking on stress so others don’t have to worry. That may mean scheduling a trip to New Zealand for a pair of friendlies in order to shake out the logistical kinks. It can also mean mimicking the travel cadence during other international windows.

On the day of Swanson’s injury, Markgraf’s skills as the conductor were put to the test. She made immediate calls to the medical staff to find out the severity of the injury. With the team scheduled to leave on a charter flight in four hours, who was staying behind with Swanson? How quickly could she get an MRI? How quickly could they get Swanson home?

After Andonovski gave his halftime talk, staff immediately asked him who should replace Swanson on the roster. Once Thompson was identified, it was left to Markgraf to contact the Angel City GM, Angela Hucles Mangano, to make sure Thompson was available. Then travel had to be arranged so that Thompson could arrive in time to train with the team the next day. Markgraf said for the most part, the staff “already have that figured out, but I’m just making sure that that conversations are happening just in case they got something else that came up.”

The rehearsals are just about over, and it’s up to Markgraf, Andonovski and the rest of the staff to put everything together. The U.S. contingent landed in New Zealand on Tuesday. Now the conductor will watch and see if the team can deliver the ultimate performance.