Learn Dutch: Het team werd na de tegenslag door de manager aangemoedigd. - The team was encouraged by the manager after the setback.

In English, we use 'to be' for the passive voice ('was encouraged'). But in Dutch, a dynamic passive action uses the verb worden. Because this happened in the past, we use the simple past tense werd. If you used was here, it would describe a completed state (they had been encouraged), rather than the action of them being encouraged.

Why is na de tegenslag placed before door de manager?

Dutch generally follows the Time-Manner-Place rule for word order in the middle of a sentence. The phrase na de tegenslag tells us when the action happened (Time), so it naturally comes before the prepositional phrase explaining by whom the action was done (door de manager).

This lesson is about ondanks (despite). How would the sentence look if we used that instead of na?

You could easily swap them to change the meaning! The sentence would become Het team werd ondanks de tegenslag door de manager aangemoedigd (The team was encouraged by the manager despite the setback). Because ondanks functions as a preposition exactly like na, the word order doesn't change at all.

Look at the past participle aangemoedigd. Why is the -ge- placed in the middle of the word?