Author’s note:
Any serious examination of the structure of Canadian soccer in the 21st century has to check in with the head coach of the San Jose Earthquakes, Frank Yallop.
With two MLS championship rings, this former coach of the Canadian men’s national soccer team is pretty much the only top-level title-winning head coach out there who also happens to hold Canadian citizenship.
Born in England and raised in Vancouver, Yallop made 316 appearances for Ipswich Town, and 88 for the defunct Tampa Bay Mutiny of MLS.
In a wide-ranging interview with Canadian Soccer News today, Yallop stressed the need for immediate change – and the patience to let the rebuild take eight or twelve years, if that’s what proves to be necessary.
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CSN: Can you go back in time and give us a list of your various coaching certifications, and what countries you did them in?
FY: My first coaching badge I got was in England, it was the FA preliminary coaching badge. I was about 26 at that point; that would be a while ago. And then I got the B and A licences from the USSF here in the States.
CSN: This was all tied in with your playing career, I take it, and you didn’t do any actual coaching certification in Canada?
FY: I did not, no.
CSN: I know that, as a former head coach of the Canadian national team, you are well-versed in what is going on here. I’m wondering if you have any initial thoughts on where coaching development stands in Canada, and what needs to change?
FY: It’s a hard question, because the answer is not just one paragraph or answer from anybody. My big thing is if we want to take this game seriously in Canada, we have to start to do that at the CSA level, at the provincial level and the professional level. Because I felt it was more of a pastime for the provinces in the national program. It wasn’t the priority. It was on the back burner the whole time. The men’s program was never really supported by the provincial level, because their job is to run their province, and not to run the national team. I think we have to break away. I think we have to have a complete separation of the national team and the provinces. Not in funding, just in principle and the way we look at stuff. Different experts will build the program, and tell the provinces how much money they need. An extra five dollars a kid is not going to hurt anybody. But it makes a huge difference to the national program.
CSN: I’ve talked to quite a few people at quite a few levels before I got in touch with you. There’s a strong feeling that because we have so few professional clubs in Canada, and so many of our young soccer players are in a pay-to-play situation, that it’s very difficult for a coach – even the most gifted coach – to give talented kids the kind of straightness and discipline needed to develop them as players without the parents complaining:“Hey, I’m paying for this and my kid’s not having any fun.”
FY: Good point! You said it all! I think, to be honest though, it’s getting better. We have four full-time Canadian professional clubs, and with Montreal next season we’ll have three in Major League Soccer. I think any young soccer player that’s good should aspire to be in those clubs. And I think that once their academies get going – really get going – in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver ... they’ve done a lovely job so far, but it’s about attracting all the best players into residency programs with the clubs. I think that will really, really help.
CSN: There’s also been a criticism – and I’m hearing this from multiple directions – that the Canadian coaching certification program concentrates too much on nutrition and fitness, and not enough on man-management and tactics.
FY: Well, I didn’t take it, so I don’t even know. But it wouldn’t surprise me. We need to revamp a lot of stuff, and the quicker we do it, the better it will become. I said all along that I had a great supporter in [CSA vice-president] Victor Montagliani. He’s a big supporter of what I was trying to do, and of the men’s national program. But you kind of bang your head against the wall sometimes, you know? He’s tried his best to really change things for the better. All we’re trying to do is make this game better in our country. It’s not a personal thing; it’s not a power struggle – at all. What’s best for Canadian soccer, and what’s going to drive the program forward? That’s the thing you’ve got to really look at – the big picture. How do we get to the World Cup? You’re competing with the U.S., Honduras, Mexico and all these teams that seem to be better than us right now.
CSN: In the wake of the women’s World Cup, Jason de Vos came out very strongly with the opinion that however well our players were coached, there are serious deficiencies in the way they’re being developed. I realize that the players who played for you when you were coach of the Canadian men’s team had different developmental routes than the women do, but did you see signs of that – places where players just hadn’t received the technical soundness they required in the very critical years of their late childhood and early teens?
FY: I did, yeah. But I still think that happens a little bit in the U.S. as well. The top elite players, in the top teams in the world – we can’t try to be like them because it would take a hundred years to be like Spain. But if you look at the development of the U.S. – what they did and how they got better – they got better in a hurry. They got a professional league going, they made the 1990 World Cup – we’re only talking a little over 20 years, and they’ve come leaps and bounds from where they were. Canada was around the type of calibre of the U.S. then, and now we’re quite a ways behind. I think it’s not so much the development of players. It’s having that dream of playing professional soccer, and making sure you really get the provinces on-board, and all our elite players get pushed on to the national program. Obviously, it’s a participation sport. We all understand that. But don’t ever stop good young players from being the best they can be. The national program is all about developing not just ball skills and effort, but giving them a chance to be really good professional players.
CSN: Do you think the fact that Canadian MLS teams are chronically struggling at this higher level – Toronto FC missing the playoffs four straight years and getting waxed 5-0 in New York last night; Vancouver starting the day today with the worst record in MLS – is slowing the ability of young players to look at those teams as examples of something they want to aspire to?
FY: I don’t think so. This league’s tough. Anybody says any different, they don’t really know what they’re talking about. It’s not easy to win in MLS. I know that Toronto in year four would have liked to have done better – of course – but they’ve made some changes. For whatever reason, it’s not easy, and they’ve not seemed to get to grips getting a ton of good results yet. But if you’re a young kid, you want to play for a team in your country – Toronto, Vancouver and obviously Montreal coming in. But it’s not easy. Vancouver in year one? From a outsider, the league looks like you can get a few wins and you’ll be fine and make the playoffs. But when you get into the grind of this season, and what it takes to be a good team in MLS, it’s difficult. We made the playoffs last year, but it was a grind. Every time I’ve made the playoffs, it hasn’t been easy. I expect Toronto and Vancouver to grow. Salt Lake took six, seven years to get good. They didn’t make the playoffs for years, and all of a sudden, they’re pretty good.
CSN: They’re actually quite wonderful now. I love watching them play.
FY: Yeah, they’re a very good side – one of the better teams in our league. But it took a while. It’s not a quick fix, and you can’t expect it to be. Any young player in Canada should want to play for a team in their country.
CSN: So, given the crucialness of player development, how crucial is coaching development? And I guess the side question to that is: if you were a young coach in Canada now, with ambitions of a professional career, how would you go about finding some way to move yourself out of the amateur game and into the pros?
FY: There’s just not enough jobs. There are only two MLS teams in Canada right now. For me, getting more coaches in the national program would be good, getting them more experience. Putting more money into the program would help pay more coaches. I think it’s just money. Again, look at the United States and what they did. Once they decided to really go for it, I think they did a good job of doing that.
CSN: With Stephen Hart now concentrating full-time on Canada’s upcoming World Cup qualifying run, the Canadian Soccer Association finds itself without a technical director these days. I’m wondering how much of an impediment you think that is, and what kind of person should be found to fill that role?
FY: Start from scratch, and see what everybody needs. Have a blank slate, and just say “what’s it going to take to really be an elite soccer country – at every level in our region?" We can’t just say we’ll get a technical director and he’s going to change everything. That doesn’t happen. He needs the support of every person that’s involved in soccer in the country. Not at the non-competitive level, but definitely at the competitive level. The top provincial teams, the national program – we should be all in the same vein of thought of what we’re trying to achieve. There should be a clear vision of what we’re trying to do. And if it’s Year 12 that we’re going to get there, set a goal! I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. Right now, we just do it year-to-year, and the budget changes, and the women’s program in the World Cup cuts into a certain amount of the men’s program, and all the rest of that. I just think everything should be sorted out in an eight-to-twelve-year plan of what we want to do.
CSN: I know you’re viewing this from a bit of a distance, but there has been a lot of movement towards reform in the CSA and its structure. It looks as though the Old Boy’s Network is not in the level of command it used to be, and that’s the direction we’re actually moving. Are you encouraged by any of this, or do you think it’s more of the same?
FY: No, I’m encouraged! It wasn’t a movement, it was really just a look at the state of the union, to find out what was going on. Let’s ask some questions. There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s about people that care about the game in our country. I’m passionate about it as well. I think that what we don’t want is just to have the same thing go one for the next twenty years, and in our lifetime we don’t see a change. It’s brave that these people are stepping up and trying to make a difference. I think it’s great. I think it needs to change, and hopefully we really start to see our program flourish.
CSN: Would you ever want to be coach of the Canadian national team again?
FY: Yes! I enjoyed my time. I just got frustrated with ... all the things we just talked about! I had an opportunity to move, and I took it. I don’t like to quit on things, but I felt I was at a bit of a dead end at that point with the job. Yeah, I definitely – one day – wouldn’t mind coaching the Canadian team again.
CSN: Thank you very much for your time today, and good luck with the Earthquakes.
FY: Thanks, Ben. Appreciate it!
Also in this series: