Agustín “Cuca” Cavalieri: The Coach Who Builds Winners

Anthem RC’s head coach has turned around winless franchises before. He helped shape Italy’s age-grade revolution. His players follow him across continents. Now, with a transformed roster and a dual role coaching the USA Eagles forwards, the Argentine-born tactician is ready to deliver the season Charlotte has been waiting for.

When Makeen Alikhan learned that Anthem Rugby Carolina was interested in signing him after the Dallas Jackals folded, his response was immediate: find out if Cuca is going.

“I didn’t sign my contract until I knew Cuca was coming over,” Alikhan says. “That’s the level of trust we have together. I’d follow him to many places in the world.”

Will Sherman, the 2025 number one overall draft pick, puts it more bluntly: “I learned more from Cuca on the technical side of being a forward in those few weeks than I probably learned my whole time at UCLA.”

And when Conner Mooneyham imagines Anthem’s first win — the one that will break a streak that has now stretched across two full seasons — he doesn’t think about his own reaction first. “I’m willing to bet Cuca is going to cry out of joy,” Mooneyham says. “And then we’ll probably all follow suit.”

These are the words of players who have experienced what Agustín Cavalieri builds. Not just game plans or set-piece structures, but environments where young players develop faster than anyone expects — and where experienced ones rediscover their best rugby.

From Rosario to Rome to Charlotte

Cavalieri’s rugby education began at four or five years old in Rosario, Argentina, at the Jockey Club — one of the city’s traditional multisport clubs where rugby is played exclusively at club level and friendships are forged for life. He represented Argentina at U19 and U21 level before injuries prompted a move to Europe at twenty, first to France and then to Italy, where he would spend fourteen years as a professional lock.

It was in Italy that he met his wife, started a family, and began the transition that would define his career. While playing at Calvisano, Cavalieri took over managing the lineout after an injured teammate couldn’t continue. In his first game running the set piece, they achieved 100 percent lineout retention and stole roughly half of the opposition’s throws. The coaches noticed. Other clubs called. A coaching career was born.

“When you play, you think you know everything,” Cavalieri says. “Then when you start coaching, you realize how difficult every part of the game is — the scrum, the lineout, the kick strategy, the counterattack. I became obsessed with learning.”

The Italian Rugby Federation invited him to complete their prestigious Level 4 coaching qualification — a program offered only once every five to ten years — and brought him into the age-grade coaching pathway. Over eight years with the federation, Cavalieri helped develop a generation of Italian players  who are now the backbone of the senior national team. He recently counted: fourteen or fifteen of Italy’s most recent Six Nations 23-man squad came through his hands at U20 level. In 2022, his Italy U20 side beat England in the Junior Six Nations for the first time in history.

The secret, he says, was a philosophy born from necessity.

“In Italy, you don’t have the numbers to be particular in selection,” he explains. “If a player can do one thing well — even just kick — you keep him. You invest in developing everything else. In Argentina, in England, in France, they can select. In Italy, you develop.”

That development philosophy would prove exactly what American rugby needed.

Building from zero — twice

When the Dallas Jackals hired Cavalieri as head coach for their second season, the franchise had just gone 0-16. He diagnosed the problem quickly: sixty to seventy different players used across sixteen games. No continuity. No culture. No identity.

He built one from scratch. Dallas won their first-ever game in April 2023, beating Toronto 14-11. By 2024, they had improved to 6-10 and made the MLR playoffs, beating Houston in the first round before falling to Seattle in the Conference Final. Then, in September 2024, the franchise folded.

“It was terrible,” Cavalieri admits. “I was super in love with that team.”

But the relationships he had forged survived the franchise’s collapse. Alikhan and Golla followed him to Charlotte. So did the coaching bonds with players who would later end up on Anthem’s roster. And when USA Eagles head coach Scott Lawrence called to ask if Cavalieri would take over as Anthem’s head coach, the fit was obvious — a development-first coach for a development-first franchise.

The why, not just the what

Cavalieri’s coaching philosophy centres on a simple idea: players who understand why they’re doing something will execute it far better than players who are simply told what to do.

“If you come just asking them to do some stuff and they don’t know why, they don’t buy the idea,” he says. “You have to tell them why you’re looking to do something, and then you give them the “how”.

He has found American players particularly receptive to this approach. “They have two very good qualities,” he says. “They are very athletic — they can jump, they can cut, they are well-coordinated. And they are super coachable. If you come with a plan, they’re going to learn it.”

That coachability, combined with Cavalieri’s development pedigree, is what makes the Anthem partnership so powerful. As both the franchise’s head coach and the USA Eagles’ forwards coach, he occupies a role with no equivalent in American professional sport: directly responsible for building the forward pack that will represent the United States at the 2027 Rugby World Cup qualifying campaign and — if all goes to plan — on home soil in 2031.

“The Anthem forwards will play very similarly to the Eagles forwards,” Cavalieri says. “Scott and I talk for hours about rugby. We are both very obsessed.”

A team built to compete

The 2026 Anthem roster represents the culmination of months of planning between Cavalieri, General Manager Mark Carney, and Lawrence. Sixteen-plus new signings. Ten capped USA Eagles. Experienced internationals like James Scott, Johan Momsen, Jordan Trainor, and Ramiro Gurovich brought in specifically to drive standards and mentor the American players around them.

“If you’re going to be an international here, you have to make the difference,” Cavalieri says. “These guys are going to make the difference.”

The game plan reflects his European forward-first mentality, adapted for the athletes at his disposal. A dominant forward pack. Disruptive defense. Controlled territory through the kicking game. And when the ball is in hand, the speed and unpredictability of players like Mooneyham, Malacchi Esdale, Julian Roberts, and Jordan Trainor unleashed in transition.

“I want a very balanced brand of rugby,” he says. “Strong forwards, solid defence. But when we have the ball, I want a team that knows what they are doing in every zone of the field.”

It is, he emphasises, not about being structured for structure’s sake. It is about creating players who recognise opportunity — and have the tools to take it.

Honour and responsibility

Cavalieri lives in Charlotte now with his wife and thirteen-year-old daughter, who speaks fluent English, Spanish, and Italian. The family came to the United States in June 2023, spent eighteen months in Dallas, and has been in Charlotte for a year. They are applying for a green card. This is home.

He speaks about the responsibility of his position with the weight of someone who understands what is at stake — not just for Anthem’s season, but for the sport’s future in this country.

“I have a big responsibility to help rugby grow here,” he says. “All of us involved — not just in USA Rugby, but in the league — we have to be accountable for what we have in front of us. Big things are arriving. I want to prepare something great for the people who come after us.”

He pauses.

“If I can be there for the 2031 Rugby World Cup — that is what I want. But if I’m not, I hope the person who takes my place will find something great that I made.”

Alikhan, who has known Cavalieri longer than any current Anthem player, offers the final word: “We’ve got a new slate, a new team, Cuca setting all the plans from the very start. We’re going to give fans a fast, brutal, physical game of rugby every weekend.”

The man who turned Dallas from 0-16 to playoff contenders in two years now has a better roster, a clearer mandate, and a coaching staff built from the ground up. The streak ends here.