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

It’s no secret that the last few years have been disappointing in Richmond.

After finishing top of the table 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 Richmond’s Head Coach and Sporting Director Darren Sawatzky to find out what to expect as the historic club heads into its 33rd season.

Putting 2025 To Rest

The 2025 season seemed to be cursed from the start. After a much hyped away kit release, celebrating the the 30th anniversary of the club’s 1995 US Open Cup title, the team promptly lost in its opening round matchup against Virginia Dream FC. The amateur team from Northern Virginia not only won, but won decisively by a 3-1 margin.

In regular season play, Richmond would go on to finish second to last in the table, dangerously close to finishing at the bottom.

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.

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

However, 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 to 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 Espinal, Seufert and [Billhardt] and all these people being injured a lot.”

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

What Will Change for 2026?

Sawatzky has already won a title at Richmond, leading the 2022 squad to win the regular season.

“When you talk about the kickers in 2026, if you look at my history in the game, I don’t like losing,” he said.

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 the squad lacked depth and wins were sacrificed to give minutes to players still under development.

“We’re gonna put the guy in the field,” he said, “it’s 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 is currently finishing up a training camp with the United States U20 team in Arizona along with former 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 everything it has said about developing and transferring younger players.

"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."

He said the overarching goal this season 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

At the time of the interview, Richmond had signed eight new players, with three or four more to come out of pre-season trials or ongoing negotiations.

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 is a prime example of this mindset. The 23 year old striker had a career season at the age of 20 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 seem 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, now at Oakland Roots. Martin helped put any concerns to rest.

"He's a great kid, but he's also grown up at the same time, he explained, "he knows what he wants, and he wants to use the year to launch."

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 on 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 the pair 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

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 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 players 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 great route."

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

"He's building it a little different, 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. It remains to be seen if Boise will have any academy level players.

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 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."