No Excuses in 2026: Darren Sawatzky Owns Richmond’s Past and Bets on Its Future

Since 2020, Richmond Kickers have been led by head coach and sporting director Darren Sawatzky. In that time, he’s won a regular season title, overseen nearly 190 roster moves, and watched attendance surge at City Stadium while pacing the sidelines in his trademark black outfits.

But after that first place finish in 2022, the club has only returned to the playoffs once. That 2024 season was still by most measures disappointing, with a 6-10-6 record and a first round loss to Union Omaha. Meanwhile, 2023 and 2025 saw finishes at the second from the bottom.

With this in mind, we sat down with Sawatzky for a surprisingly candid interview to find out what to expect as the historic club heads into its 33rd season, and the final year of his contract.

Putting 2025 To Rest

With a second to last place finish in 2025, fans haven’t been happy and are increasingly engaged and vocal about their opinions, something of which Sawatzky is very aware.

“If people believe that we like losing games, particularly at home, they’re crazy,” he said, “that’s not the case at all.”

Still, he doesn’t mind the feedback, saying it comes with the job.

“If there wasn’t criticism, then there wouldn’t be any meaning,” he clarified.

Sawatzky takes full responsibility for the outcome and is also aware of his own contract status; he has this season, with only a club option remaining.

“I have to do a better job,” he candidly stated, “if I don’t do a better job this year, I’m likely out of here.”

He attributed 2025’s lack of success to numerous key injuries, without enough depth to sustain a setup that worked. He said if fans want to see what the team was capable of, look at the final match of the season, a 5-1 victory over Forward Madison.

“I don’t believe I was ever able to put that group of players on the field,” he said, while conceding “that’s not an excuse, because you got to build a team that can deal with ... all these people being injured.”

He named three pieces of the offensive core in particular whose injuries interrupted the flow of the season. Midfielder Adrian Billhardt missed five regular season matches, forward Darwin Espinal missed four, and midfielder Nils Seufert missed two. An example of their expected impact shows clearly in a 2-0 mid-season loss at Greenville, where all three sat out, and the squad could not even put a single shot on target.

But Sawatzky doesn't blame the veteran players for missing these matches in USL League One's grueling schedule.

“We couldn’t consistently put it together, and I own that,” he conceded.

Plan to Win: What's Changing for 2026

While Billhardt departed in free agency and signed with Union Omaha seeking a fresh start, both Espinal and Seufert are returning as key veteran pieces to the offense.

They're joined by striker Josh Kirkland, winger Landon Johnson, midfielder Hayden Anderson, and defenders Beckett Howell, Griffin Garnett and team captain Dakota Barnathan, along with goalkeeper James Sneddon.

At the time of the interview, Richmond had signed eight new players, with three or four more expected to come out of pre-season trials or ongoing negotiations. They're replacing numerous fan favorites, including Billhardt, Matt Bolduc, Chandler O'Dwyer, Maxi Schenfeld, Simon Fitch, Pablo Jara and the league's all time leading goal scorer, Emiliano Terzaghi.

As the club's Sporting Director, he's forced to make tough decisions each off season, and this one was no different.

"It would be awesome if you could pay what you wanted and you could get what you wanted," he said, "you could keep them for three, four years so you could really build a culture in a team that doesn't have to change."

"But that's just not the reality in the third division," he concluded.

Fans have been critical about the lack of depth and a perceived over-reliance on younger, inexperienced or academy players. Indeed, one big change he mentioned right away involves the younger players on the team.

“Guys will get opportunities, but the younger contingent of guys are true professionals now,” he explained, “so they gotta earn it.”

He’s aware of the feedback from the fan base, the perception that wins were sacrificed to give minutes to players still under development. While he indicated that this perception wasn't the full story, he still said for 2026 that players on the field will be "the best in the position.”

As far as depth, Sawatzky believes he is building something more sustainable for 2026.

“In the past couple of years, we've had players that if they were injured, it changed the style of play for us.”

He continued, “I was very poignant in making sure that this year if guys did get injured, we were still able to be competitive in the way we want to play.”

This includes building depth with players who are similar in style. And a look at the 2026 roster so far seems to back this up. 

Perhaps getting ahead of things, but bringing a great deal of confidence to the pre-season, Sawatzky declared "I know there’s a lot of change, but we are going to win every game, that is going to be the plan."

On Player Development

Richmond will still have a goal of developing and potentially selling younger players. Center back Griffin Garnett has been talked about since he turned professional as one such opportunity. According to the club, he just finished a training camp with the United States U20 team in Arizona along with former Richmond academy player Nick Simmonds. Garnett will then head to Europe for a two week trial with a club to be announced.

While this does not guarantee his departure on a transfer fee, it shows the club is serious about developing and exploring opportunities.

"Giving guys a platform and having them grow into full-fledged pros is really rewarding," said Sawatzky, while acknowledging that there needs to be a balance that includes winning matches.

Several younger players from the Richmond academy system are now entering their second and third years on professional deals with the club. This includes Garnett, as well as goalkeeper James Sneddon, left back Beckett Howell, and forward Landon Johnson.

Sawatzky says these players are "true professionals," and "they gotta earn it."

Richmond's defensive signings this off season indicate Sawatzky is serious about that. Garnett will have to compete for minutes at center back with the likes of veteran Sean Vinberg, along with Ethan Kos and Sam Layton, two hungry defenders who are slightly older.

But this fits in with the plan for 2026, where Sawatzky said the overarching goal is to ensure that all of the players can both grow and win matches, with a healthy mix of younger players and veterans who "can win with any team in our league."

On the New Players

There seemed to be a pattern among the new players - taller, mostly from outside USL League One, and a lot of potential comeback stories.

"This is a gritty group," said Sawatzky, "we worked really hard to make sure that this team was more durable."

He elaborated, "we wanted guys that are super competitive, that really want the opportunity and are grateful for it."

He also set out to look for players who "have been in places and have made it and done pretty well, and then for some reason, something happened, whether it was an injury or, you know, they fell out of favor and are looking to get back and are hungry."

Tyler Freeman in 2022 with Loudoun United
Image credit Loudoun United/Instagram

Tyler Freeman is a prime example of this mindset. The now-23 year old striker had a career season at the age of 19 with Loudoun United, scoring eight goals in 24 matches. This followed his progression at Swope Park/Sporting Kansas City II, where he scored one, two and then three goals in three respective seasons. However, after Loudoun, he bounced around between Nashville SC and Carolina Core, with loan spells to Birmingham Legion and Hartford Athletic. Appearances and minutes seemed to dry up, along with goal scoring.

Sawatzky says Freeman was "a bit of a casualty based on what happened with coaches in his path."

He said he had a long conversation with Freeman's former Loudoun coach, Ryan Martin, who helped put any concerns to rest.

"He's a great kid, but he's also grown up at the same time," explaining a bit about what he got from the conversation with Martin, "[Freeman] knows what he wants, and he wants to use the year to launch."

After struggling to find a professional opportunity following his departure from Carolina Core, Freeman spent 2025 first with Ventura County Fusion, during the amateur club's US Open Cup run. He then joined Western Suburbs in New Zealand's top tier. There, he appears to have found his scoring touches again, with nine goals in 17 appearances.

Sawatzky described Freeman as having the "ability to create on his own, to score on his own, and combine and score for multiple positions."

He added that Freeman "has the ability to take people on and score his own goals in a way that translates to MLS level."

Sawatzky also spoke highly of left back Daniel Moore, calling him "a machine" and right back Mujeeb Murana. He compared them to 2022's pairing of Stuart Ritchie and Stephen Payne, calling that style "the way I love to play it."

"The mobility and our ability to get forward and have an impact in the attack from those spots hasn't been as good as it needs to be," he said, "everyone that's played there has been great, but Mujeeb is a guy that has MLS level quality, both as a player and as an athlete."

Murana missed the entire 2025 season recovering from injury after splitting 2024 between Birmingham Legion and Miami FC.

"He's very, very hungry," continued Sawatzky, "he's also very humble, he's a bit of a philosopher."

 Another USL League One coach told us off the record that his team had been tracking Murana, but the timing never worked out.

"He'll bring an athleticism that Richmond was missing," said the coach.

On USL League One

Darren Sawatzky leading the Richmond Kickers during a match in 2023
Image provided by Richard Hayes

Sawatzky says the league has changed rapidly since Richmond won the league in 2022, and it's been difficult to adjust.

The Collective Bargaining Agreement with the USL Player's Association went into effect right after that season ended, increasing costs. Key players moved on to new opportunities. Richmond chose to go younger, and it hasn't always worked out.

"These aren't excuses, for sure," he said, "but we've been in every game, we've been competitive," adding "I have to do better, and I know that."

"Each year I've been here, there's been an increase in salary," he explained, "but, you know, this isn't Westchester or Boise, right?"

While the league and clubs do not disclose payrolls, the two clubs are known for currently outspending much of the rest of the league when it comes to player salaries.

"Guys have left our team this year and before to make more money, and I'm okay with that," he said, "I can't get in the way of them, they have to make decisions based on what they need."

"If I'm in a bidding war with other teams, I'm probably not going to be on the winning end a lot."

He said the imbalance has caused teams such as Richmond to "go find players in places that maybe other people don't look," or those who are "looking to resurrect a career and are very hungry."

He continued, "if you're one of the teams that really opens up a checkbook, like Lexington did and Boise is doing, it's a little bit different, right? You can go sign Cam Lancaster out of the Championship."

"Richmond's really not that, and I'm not sure we're looking to be," he said, "but it's evolving."

He mentioned he liked what the NY Cosmos have done ahead of its inaugural season, seeing it as somewhat similar to the Richmond experiment, only in a market that has enough local talent to field ten USL League One teams.

"They're taking really good college kids from their area," he said, "I totally respect that, I think it's a great route."

He also mentioned Sarasota Paradise, where former Richmond assistant Mika Elovaara is now Head Coach and Sporting Director.

"He's building it a little differently, but Mika's a player developer too," he said, "but teams like Boise, Spokane, they have zero interest in it."

Indeed, Spokane Velocity only announced its first academy signing, Rocky Wells, ahead of the 2025 season. Wells is to date the only academy player with Spokane. Meanwhile Boise has indicated future plans for an academy pathway, but it does not appear to be in motion for 2026.

He backtracked a little, saying "I'm over speaking because I'm not in their camp and those are both great owners, but they're definitely signing older players looking to win now."

He doesn't think the tide has turned across the league favorable to Richmond's development system.

"I don't think that most teams in our league are player development based, but teams are definitely doing," he explained, "Omaha did a great job with Mark Bronnick, and there's a lot of young guys, but they're pretty singular."

"There weren't any teams in our league last year that were playing multiple teenagers every game, like we were."

He concluded the interview by reiterating that the goal is to try to win every game.

"We are we're gonna go to AV Alta and try to win that game to start the season, and I'm gonna keep saying it, and it's difficult to do, and at the same time, we are gonna keep developing players, and it's difficult," he said, "it's a hard thing to do, but we're gonna show them every day, and we're committed to it."

Special thanks to Richard Hayes for all photographs in this story.